C a l i f o r n i a S t a t e l i b r a r y f o u n d a t i o n

N u m b e r 1 0 42 0 1 2

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 1

EditorGary F. Kurutz

Editorial assistantKathleen Correia

Copy EditorM. Patricia Morris

Board of dirECtors

Kenneth B. Noack, Jr. President

George Basye Vice-President

Thomas E. Vinson Treasurer

Donald J. Hagerty Secretary

Stacey Aldrich State Librarian of California

JoAnn Levy Allan E. Forbes Sue T. Noack Herbert J. Hunn Marilyn Snider Phillip L. Isenberg Thomas W. Stallard Mead B. Kibbey

Sandra Swafford

Gary F. Kurutz Julia Schaw Executive Director Administrative Assistant

Shelley Ford Bookkeeper

The California State Library Foundation Bulletin is published when we are able. © 2004-2012.

Opinions of the authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their institutions, the California State Library or the Foundation.

The Bulletin is included as a membership benefit to Foundation members and those individuals contributing $40.00 or more annually to Foundation Programs. Membership rates are:

Associate: $40-$99 Contributor: $100-249 Sponsor: $250-$499 Patron: $500-$999 Institutional: $500 Corporate: $750 Lifetime Member: $1,000 Pioneer: $5,000 Subscription to Libraries: $30/year

C a l i f o r n i a S t a t e l i b r a r y f o u n d a t i o n

Number 1042012

2������������The�Sutro�Library�Now�Open�in�a�Sparkling�New�Location�By Gary F. Kurutz

6������������Adolph�Sutro�as�Book�Collector�By Russ Davidson

38 ����������Reflections�on�the�Sutro�Library�By Gary E. Strong

40�����������The�Sutro�Library’s�Long�Journey�Is�Over�By Gary F. Kurutz

43����������W�Michael�Mathes�(1936–2012):�A�Remembrance�By Gary F. Kurutz

52������������Recent�Contributors

Front Cover: The sparkling new entranceway of the Sutro Library and J. Paul Leonard

Libraries on the campus of San Francisco State University.

Back Cover: Oil-on-canvas portrait of Adolph Sutro by A. A. Anderson, 1887.

Illustrations / Photos: Front cover and pages 2-5, courtesy of HMC Architects; pages 6-42, the Sutro Library; page 43, Marianne Hinckle; pages 43-50, Sutro Library. Lauranne Lee of the Sutro Library and Vincent Beiderbecke of the California State Library photographed and scanned many of the images.

Design: Angela Tannehill, Tannehill Design

California State Library Foundation 1225 8th Street, Suite 345, Sacramento, CA 95814 tel: 916.447.6331 web: www.cslfdn.org | email: info@cslfdn.org

2 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

The Sutro Library“Across the board, researchers, new patrons and returning

patrons have unanimously loved the new facilities.”

Diana Kohnke, Librarian, Sutro Library.

The sparkling glass and steel front façade of the new Sutro Library and J. Paul Leonard Library provide an inviting entrance from the Quad of San Francisco State University. The Sutro Library is on the fifth and sixth floors. Courtesy HMC Architects.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 3

EDITOR’S NOTE

Mr. Kurutz is the Foundation’s executive director. He wishes to

express his gratitude to Supervising Librarian II Haleh Motiey,

Librarian Diana Kohnke, and Special Assistant Lauranne Lee

of the Sutro Library for their cheerful assistance with this issue

of the Bulletin.

Now�Open�in�a��Sparkling�New�LocationBy Gary F. Kurutz

The Sutro Library

n August 1, 2012, State Librarian of California Stacey Aldrich

greeted and welcomed researchers to the opening of the

Sutro Library, the San Francisco branch of the State Library,

in its attractive and spacious new home in the heart of San Francisco

State University. Located on the fifth and sixth floors of the renovated

and expanded J. Paul Leonard Library, this opening marks the end

of nearly a century of temporary facilities for this noteworthy public

research library bequeathed to the State Library by the heirs of Adolph

Sutro. This date also marks the happy conclusion of over a decade of

planning and construction. Ms. Aldrich was accompanied by David

Cismowski, Debbie Newton, Jarrid Keller, and Gerald Maginnity of the

State Library’s executive committee along with a joyous Sutro Library

staff led by Sutro Supervising Librarian Haleh Motiey. Diana Kohnke,

the Sutro Library’s invaluable new reference librarian enthusiastically

observed, “Across the board, researchers, new patrons and returning

patrons have unanimously loved the new facilities.”

As researchers approach the J. Paul Leonard Library and look at its

gleaming north façade and its inviting entranceway, they will see in

large letters “J. Paul Leonard Library / Sutro Library.” The main floor

of this twenty-first century university library certainly gives a wel-

coming feeling. In recognition of its comely design, the building’s

architectural firm, HMC, won the 2012 Project of the Year Award by

the Design-Build Institute of the Western Pacific Chapter. The space

is filled with light and openness, and lounge chairs encourage study

and quiet socialization. It is indeed an inspiring temple of learning.

Off to one side is the hallmark of the modern academic library: a cof-

fee service. In another direction, a large iconic letter “i” graces the

wall, meaning this is the Information Center. Near the doorway, a

sign with an enlargement of the Sutro bookplate leads the researcher

to the elevators and the new Sutro facility. After a short trip to the

fifth floor, the library patron enters an attractive entrance lobby. On

one wall is a beautiful digitized portrait of Adolph Sutro, the amaz-

ing San Franciscan who created the nucleus of this great library. The

reader will then be greeted by the friendly and helpful Sutro Library

staff from behind a handsome and functional information and refer-

ence desk. The researcher is now poised to make use of one of the

notable libraries of California.

On the north side of the fifth floor is a long bank of windows that

overlooks the beautifully landscaped central “quad” of San Francisco

State University. Open stacks filled with one of the nation’s largest

genealogy and United States local history collections beckons the

4 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

reader. Once library patrons check their

belongings into nearby lockers, a series

of handsome wooden tables and comfort-

able chairs on the north wall are available.

In this age of laptops and tablets, all have

ready access to power, and the facility is

fully equipped for wireless connectivity.

Behind the tables are stacks loaded with

regional and county histories, directories,

gazetteers, family histories, biographies,

ship passenger lists, and periodicals.

The new facility provided the State

Library’s Information Technology Bureau

with an opportunity to introduce new tech-

nology and equipment into the reading

room. Digital and analog resources live

comfortably side-by-side. As Kohnke noted,

“Although slightly trepidatious about the

new technology to begin with, patrons,

in the end, embraced and lauded the new

book scanners and microfilm scanners.

Members of the Daughters of the Ameri-

can Revolution (D.A.R.) were especially

excited about the ability to use the micro-

film scanners to obtain clearer and sharper

images than before.”

To the immediate west of the reference

desk is the glass enclosed rare materials

reading room. Here scholars studying rare

books, manuscripts, maps, and pictorial

material are segregated. To protect these

invaluable and irreplaceable collections

against ever so clever thieves that prey on

libraries, researchers are literally locked

into the room. Easily viewable from the

reference desk, they have to request per-

mission to exit. But, what a treasure trove

of incunabula, Hebrew scrolls, botani-

cal drawings, English diurnals, and early

nineteenth century Mexican imprints

await their eager eyes!

Beyond the rare materials reading room

are additional tables and stations for view-

ing the Sutro’s immense collection of

microforms of U.S. local histories, city

directories, cemetery records, U.S. census

records, and film copies of Sutro Library

special collections such as the Mexican

pamphlet collection. To help researchers

as they gaze into the screens of micro-

form reading machines, the windows are

blocked off. This side of the public area

is also filled with open stacks containing

more genealogical material and a sizeable

collection of California history.

As a reminder of the library’s origins

with Adolph Sutro, the walls that are not

covered with bookshelves are embellished

with framed reproductions of treasures the

great man collected. The most imposing is

the aforementioned full-length, seven-foot

high digital portrait of Adolph Sutro in the

entranceway. This is flanked by a full-color

reproduction of Sutro’s own cigar box

label “Flor de Adolph Sutro.” The chro-

molithograph for his Havana cigars fea-

tures a profile of Sutro along with his Cliff

House, gardens, and baths. On another

wall is a beautiful full-size reproduction

The attractive entrance to the new facility is graced by windows looking out to the Quad. Students and visitors enjoy comfortable seating and tables for books and a variety of electronic devices. Courtesy HMC Architects.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 5

(79 x 82 inches) of a colored lithograph of

the Sutro Baths; a photograph of Sutro’s

elegant Cliff House; and the celebrated

world map (78 x 50 inches) by Pieter van

den Keere, c. 1610. The originals are now

securely stored. Another framed picture is

an enlargement of a striking photograph

showing a very happy Sutro in his library

at his home in Sutro Heights. Supplement-

ing these are handsome wood and plexi-

glass exhibit cases designed to showcase

library treasures. One of these, however,

permanently protects a beautiful marble

bust of Sutro. The sculpture at one time

was actually on display at Sutro’s museum

in his famous natatorium overlooking the

Pacific Ocean.

Elevators take staff and visitors to the top

floor of the building. The vast majority of

the square footage on this level is devoted

to a high security vault housing the Sutro’s

remarkable rare book and manuscript col-

lection. At last, the books and collections

can, figuratively speaking, breathe. They are

no longer crammed onto towering compact

shelves or double and triple shelved. Fur-

thermore, they will not have to move again.

It is indeed an impressive sight to walk into

this high security area and see stack after

stack of vellum and leather-bound volumes

covering scores of fascinating topics from

ancient theological tomes to a first edition

of Charles Darwin’s famous voyage on the

H.M.S. Beagle. State of the art fire suppres-

sion, fire-rated doors, humidity and tem-

perature control, and electronic security

will safeguard these precious collections for

generations to come.

In the middle of the north side of this

floor is an attractive seminar room. Here

staff will be able to give orientation ses-

sions and workshops related to collec-

tion strengths and the fascinating history

of Adolph Sutro and his library. It is also

hoped that visiting scholars and other

researchers will be able to share informa-

tion about their own projects and how they

are using the library’s collections and ser-

vices. Of course the room is equipped with

internet access and will be able to handle

a variety of electronic media. With ever-

changing technology, flexibility is the key.

The remainder of this lofty space is

devoted to staff and volunteer offices and

workrooms. Answering reference ques-

tions via email, packing materials for

interlibrary loans, processing gifts to the

collection, performing minor repairs on

books, copying documents, and digitiz-

ing collections are just some of the mul-

titude of functions conducted behind the

scenes. Staff and volunteers, however,

will be working in a cheerful space with

new furniture and equipment. Moreover,

offices have windows—a real bonus in any

work situation. The north side windows

overlook the green lawns, trees, and path-

ways that make up the central quad of the

university. On those rare cloudless or fog-

free days, the Pacific Ocean and hills of

San Francisco offer a soothing vista. If one

looks to the northeast, Mt. Sutro is in view.

How appropriate!

Importantly, the Sutro Library’s staff

will be able to work more directly with the

university’s students and faculty. Already,

staff has conducted several tours and met

with the library faculty of the university’s

Leonard Library, and the future promises

a bright and productive relationship. The

university’s provost of academic affairs

toured the collections and expressed

great delight in its size and richness. For

decades, the Sutro Library has been known

primarily for its incomparable genealogy

and local history collections with bus-

loads of family historians delving into its

resources. Now with the Sutro located in

the heart of the campus, it will open the

rare book and other special collections to

a new user group. One can only imagine

the delight of an English major as he or

she opens a First Folio Shakespeare from

1623 (the first collected works of the bard);

the incredulous faces of geography majors

as they study maps from the seventeenth

century showing California as an island;

or the gasps of delight as art history stu-

dents turn the leaves of botanical books

illustrated with hand-colored plates. It is

anticipated that the various humanities

and liberal arts departments of San Fran-

cisco State and other state universities will

find a Golconda of original source mate-

rial on the upper floors of this sparkling

new facility.

It seems only appropriate to extend a

sincere round of applause to present and

past Sutro Library and California State

Library staff who have had to move this

great collection many times, discover and

negotiate for new spaces, handle innu-

merable building emergencies, and fend

off the budget cutters who would threaten

this great library.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dr. Russ Davidson’s superb overview of the for-

mation of Adolph Sutro’s rare book collection

and its subsequent history is reprinted from the

Issue Number 75 (Spring / Summer 2003) of

the Bulletin. Russ Davidson is curator emeri-

tus of Latin American and Iberian collections

and professor emeritus of librarianship at the

University of New Mexico. A native of San

Francisco, he has had an abiding interest in

the early history of the Sutro Library.

t is quite possible that in the

annals of American book col-

lecting and library history, there

is no collector who has received less recog-

nition—in relation to the value and impor-

tance of his library than the San Francisco

entrepreneur Adolph Sutro. Sutro (1830-

1898), an emigre to the United States

from Prussia, began his collecting in a

serious, systematic way in the early 1880s;

within the span of ten years—driven by

the ambition to create and endow a great

public research library—he had assem-

bled what apparently was the largest pri-

vate library in America. At its peak, Sutro’s

library contained perhaps 250,000 vol-

umes and as many as 300,000 titles.1 It

was unrivaled, however, not only for its

size, but also for the strength and richness

of many of its holdings. These comprised

incunabula; a wealth of sixteenth-century

books printed by all of the great European

publishing houses; extensive runs of early

scientific and technical treatises and peri-

odicals; exhaustive collections of tracts,

pamphlets, and periodicals documenting

periods of English, Continental, and Mexi-

can political, literary, and religious history;

unique manuscript holdings pertaining to

ancient Jewish history and to the history

of eighteenth-century travel and discov-

ery—the list runs on. In a word, Sutro had

wanted to form a collection with sufficient

range and depth across different branches

of human knowledge and periods of his-

tory that it might serve as the basis for

a leading public research library on the

Adolph Sutro

as Book Collector

Oil on canvas portrait of Adolph Sutro, 1887. The artist, A. A. Anderson, captured the larger-than-life persona of Sutro in this full-length portrait. The original painting measures 9 x 6 feet.

6 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

A�New�LookBy Russ Davidson

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 7

Pacific Coast, and he was largely success-

ful in meeting this objective.

Given this success and the magnifi-

cence of his library, it would seem to be a

reasonable expectation to find Sutro listed

among the ranks of America’s eminent

book collectors. The reality, however, is

otherwise. At the height of his book buy-

ing ventures, when his library neared and

then exceeded the 100,000-volume mark,

Sutro did receive a measure of recogni-

tion, particularly in the local and regional

press.2 Yet in the main, the record is

strangely silent concerning Sutro and his

library. Few directories or collective biog-

raphies of notable collectors published in

this country mention Adolph Sutro, and

those that do generally limit their remarks

to a sentence or two. For example, Carl

Cannon’s survey, American Book Collectors

and Collecting from Colonial Times to the

Present, makes no mention of Sutro, nor

is he among the 359 “significant Ameri-

can book collectors,” included in Donald

Dickinson’s more recent Dictionary of

American Book Collectors.3 Typical of the

treatment that Sutro receives, when he is

mentioned, is that accorded him by Ruth

Shepard Granniss in the landmark 1939

survey, The Book in America ... ,4 in which

Sutro and his library are together given a

total of three lines—this in a book whose

declared purpose was to correct the defi-

ciencies of previous studies and do justice

to the full range of book collecting in the

United States.5

Thus the question inevitably arises,

why would a man who figured so promi-

nently in the history of book collecting in

the United States receive so little recogni-

tion? How could accounts such as Ruth

Granniss’, which sought to document

“the growth of libraries” and “the own-

ership of books by individuals,” in this

country either omit or at best make scant

reference to Adolf Sutro? The answer is

multi-faceted but has two broad sources:

first, the unfortunate fate which befell the

library after its owner’s death, consigning

it to neglect, disuse, and partial destruc-

tion; and second, the belief—given cre-

dence in anecdotal and popular accounts

but false to a great extent that Sutro was

not a collector or bookman in the more

“Flor de Adolph Sutro.” Adolph Sutro, when he first came to California in the Gold Rush, made a living selling tobacco in San Francisco. This beautiful cigar box label for Cuban cigars was commissioned by the great collector. Flanking his portrait are views of Sutro Heights (left) and the Sutro Baths.

8 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

sophisticated sense of the term, but sim-

ply a parvenu and latecomer, who opened

up his checkbook to buy vast quantities of

books, operating without any underlying

method or rationale. In the intertwined fate

of Sutro’s library on the one hand, and the

distorted image of him as a collector on the

other, lies the explanation for his puzzling

absence from the pages of American book

collecting history.

sUtro as CollECtor: faCt and fanCy

In January 1917, the Sutro Library was

opened to the public as the San Francisco

branch of the California State Library. By

that time, Adolph Sutro had been dead for

nearly two decades, and the Library had

suffered greatly during the interval. Sutro

had on many occasions publicly described

his plans to donate his library to the city

of San Francisco, after first constructing

a building in which to house it and then

providing an endowment for its growth

and maintenance. He had devoted con-

siderable time and energy to formulating

these plans, but unfortunately—in one of

the signal failures of his life—waited too

long to implement them. When he died in

1898, the library was stored in two loca-

tions in downtown San Francisco. Approx-

imately half was warehoused in a building

on Battery Street, and the other half stored

on shelves in a specially-renovated suite of

offices that he rented in what was called

the “Montgomery Block.” During the con-

flagration which swept over the city in the

wake of the 1906 earthquake, all of the

books in the Battery Street warehouse—

some 100,000 volumes or more—were

destroyed. The fireproofed Montgomery

Block survived. In a further misfortune,

Sutro—distracted during his final years by

multiple business and political interests—

had neglected to write a new will. The old

will had been drawn up in 1882, on the eve

of Sutro’s book-buying ventures, and thus

made no stipulation about the disposition

of the library. As a result, it was contested

by Sutro’s heirs along with the rest of the

estate. In 1913, after years of protracted

litigation, Sutro’s children finally agreed

to donate it to the California State Library.

Even in its diminished state, the Sutro

Library remained an exceptional collec-

tion with several areas of unduplicated

strength. Although announcements about

the opening of the Sutro Branch in 1917

fell, unsurprisingly, upon a largely disinter-

ested public, they did stir the imagination

and memories of some. One such individ-

ual was Edward F. O’Day, a columnist for

a San Francisco weekly entitled Town Talk.

Curious to know more about the library

and its colorful founder, O’Day sought out

the veteran San Francisco bookdealer and

bibliophile Robert E. Cowan. As O’Day

knew, Cowan was the perfect source. A

man of wide erudition, Cowan had per-

sonally known Sutro, had inspected books

housed in the Montgomery Block quarters

several times, and had gotten second-

hand descriptions of Sutro’s book-hunting

exploits and methods of acquisition from

two of the individuals with the great-

est knowledge of Sutro’s library, George

Moss and Frederic Beecher Perkins.6 In

the interview with O’Day, Cowan drew

upon his rich store of information to leave

the reader with a series of sharp images

of Sutro and several of the eccentric per-

sonalities around him—Moss; Perkins;

Moss’s successor, Ella Weaver; Sutro’s

daughter Emma, the executrix of his estate

and the only one of his six children who

shared, to a small degree, his bibliophilic

interests; and W. R. H. Adamson, coex-

ecutor of the estate and a close adviser to

Sutro. Cowan, it is clear from his remarks,

found much to admire in Sutro—his suc-

cess as a pioneering California business-

man, his knowledge of languages and

refined European upbringing, his philan-

thropy and record of civic leadership—but

he did harbor certain reservations about

Sutro as a book collector, and more specifi-

cally, about Sutro’s methods of acquiring

material. In what would later become an

oft-quoted passage, Cowan offered the fol-

lowing observation:

He had a queer way of buying

which was particularly successful in

Italy. He’d go into a book shop and

see ten or fifteen thousand volumes,

mostly in pigskin or parchment. He’d

ask how much was wanted per vol-

ume for the whole collection. Perhaps

the dealer would say, “four lire.” He’d

offer two lire, and get the whole stock.

And usually it would be a bargain. Or

Sutro Library bookplate. Designed for Adolph Sutro, the Sutro Library still uses this handsome exlibris or bookplate. With the banner

“Hard Work Conquerors All,” the illustration shows scenes important to Sutro: the Cliff House, Sutro Heights, the “Honest Miner,” and the Sutro Tunnel, Nevada.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 9

Sutro Baths, c. 1896. Measuring a stupendous 79 x 82 inches, this full-color print is one of the most famous views of a San Francisco landmark. Built by Sutro, the baths opened on March 14, 1896, and ranked as the world’s largest indoor swimming facility. The baths burned down in 1966. The late Herb Caplan generously donated the original lithograph to the Sutro Library.

It is quite possible that in the annals of American

book collecting and library history, there is no

collector who has received less recognition—in

relation to the value and importance of his library

than the San Francisco entrepreneur Adolph Sutro.

1 0 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

Plan of Sutro Heights. This map shows the location for a proposed library or museum. Sutro was dissuaded from placing his collections at his ocean side estate because of the high humidity. However, it was out of the fire zone during the April 1906 downtown holocaust.

he’d go to the old monasteries and

ask the monks to sell their old trea-

sures. They’d refuse, whereupon he’d

draw from his pockets handfuls of

American gold, and the impoverished

monks would yield. These methods

of buying account for the enormous

heterogeneous mass of books in the

Sutro collection. He didn’t live long

enough to round the collection out.7

These comments of Cowan’s require

some analysis and qualification. First, they

leave the impression that this approach

was Sutro’s principal, if not exclusive,

method of acquiring books. To so char-

acterize him, however, would be unfair.

Without question, Sutro engaged in such

practice and (as described below) gladly

seized opportunities to buy significant

parts of libraries or even, in one instance,

a dealers’s entire stock. But in this regard,

Sutro was hardly unique; all of the great

collectors of his day Henry Huntington,

or Sutro’s San Francisco contemporary,

Hubert Howe Bancroft, to cite two promi-

nent examples—engaged in similar prac-

tices. That many, such as Huntington, may

have done so in more genteel or discreet

fashion is essentially beside the point. The

differences are cosmetic; they, like Sutro,

were on a mission and would let nothing

stand in their way.

Cowan’s remarks also leave the impres-

sion that Sutro’s library had no particular

shape or design, that he simply grabbed

at books and collected without any coher-

ent underlying strategy. This characteriza-

tion is equally unfair. It is true that Sutro’s

library extended into many areas and fields

and had no single unifying theme, but the

library’s heterogeneity was consistent with

Adolph Sutro’s original plan for it.

Unlike many bookmen, such as Henry

Clay Folger, Sutro was not out to collect

exhaustively on a particular author and

period, nor was he out to concentrate, like

a Pierpont Morgan, on collecting rare and

precious books, manuscripts, and objets

d’art.8 Sutro’s purposes, as will be seen,

were quite different, and both the structure

and qualities of his library and the man-

ner in which it was developed were fully

consistent with them. Cowan’s remarks,

however, tended to get repeated and the

impression that they left, both of Sutro as

an over-eager and undisciplined collector

and of his library as something of a giant

shapeless mass, became solidified in the

minds of those concerned with such mat-

ters. Consider, for example, the opinion

expressed by Milton J. Ferguson, who, as

assistant librarian of the California State

Library, wrote about Sutro: “If the collector

had any early ideas about the scope of his

library, he soon forgot them in the excite-

ment of gathering his treasures.”9 Fergu-

son could not have been more wrong. Not

only did Sutro have a clear sense, from the

outset, of the kind of library he planned to

assemble, but—as his correspondence with

his own staff and with figures in the book

trade make clear, he maintained this focus

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 1 1

until his collecting energies gave out. The

one claim of Cowan’s that may be accepted

at face value is that Sutro did not live long

enough to round out his library.

Thus, if Cowan’s impressions are only

partially true, and in some respects not

true at all, how, exactly, did Adolph Sutro

operate? What were his guideposts, meth-

ods, and motives? Although Sutro’s pas-

sion for books was long-standing, indeed

dated back to his boyhood years in Aix-

laChapelle, he was not in the position to

undertake large-scale buying until the

early 1880s. During the previous decade,

however, Sutro had made a series of trips

to London to raise capital for his project

to construct a tunnel to drain the silver

mines of the Comstock Lode near Vir-

ginia City, Nevada.10 He took advantage of

these trips to visit bookshops and make

minor purchases. Sutro’s struggle to get

the tunnel project capitalized and com-

pleted was titanic, and it consumed his

life for more than a decade. But in the

end—working against powerful financial

and mining interest he was successful.

After the tunnel was completed in 1879,

Sutro sold out his interest, and by the end

of 1880, had realized a profit of more than

$700,000. He then turned his attention

to real estate, and within two years had

significantly increased his fortune by pur-

chasing valuable properties in downtown

San Francisco as well as extensive tracts of

land in outlying, undeveloped parts of the

city. Now measuring his worth in the mil-

lions of dollars, Sutro set out in 1882 on a

lengthy trip that took him to the Far East,

South Asia, the Near East, and Europe.

Sutro spent almost two years in Europe,

and his extended stay allowed him to lay the

foundation for his library. The idea of the

library, though, and of the purpose behind

it had been taking shape in his mind for a

number of years. Now it took solid form.

“The wealth of man,” Sutro stated, “can be

enjoyed only a short portion of the immea-

surable span of time... and I resolved to

devote some portion of this wealth for

the benefit of the people among whom

I have so long labored. I first resolved to

collect a library, a library for reference, not

a library of various book curiosities, but a

library which shall compare with any in

the world.”11 Thus, in the classic late nine-

teenth century gospel of wealth tradition,

Sutro decided to use part of his fortune to

enhance the cultural good of his adopted

city, and in characteristic fashion, he set

his sights high, taking as models some

of the great libraries of Europe, or of the

eastern United States. While this goal may

have been overly ambitious, California in

the early 1880s still lacked a single library

of high stature. Even at the time of Sutro’s

death—some fifteen years in the future—

the library of the Berkeley campus of the

University of California numbered only

80,000 volumes.12 Sutro launched into the

task of building a library with the same

single-minded determination that he had

previously brought to the tunnel project

Sutro, a populist and staunch foe of the robber barons who controlled the California economy, won election as mayor of San Francisco in 1894. Unfortunately, his term as mayor distracted him from building a suitable home for his great library.

1 2 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

and by the time he was through, would

spend nearly as many years assembling his

library as he had in seeing the tunnel con-

struction to completion. Initially, in late

1882–early 1883, Sutro did all of his own

buying, either directly from dealers and

through occasional bidding at auctions, or

by using dealers as his agents and scouts.

He visited bookshops constantly and cor-

responded with dealers in Scotland and

Germany. Among the London booksellers

he worked with were J. Britnell, Wildy &

Sons, William Ridler, Maggs, J. Westnell,

E. W. Stibbs, and Bernard Quaritch.13

Since he began with only the rudiments

of a collection, Sutro’s orientation in build-

ing his library was extremely broad. In the

beginning, there was little that he could

not use, as long as it met the criteria—in

his eyes—of having undisputed histori-

cal or literary worth and of documenting

or reflecting the growth and development

of European civilization from antiquity to

modern times and the spread of that civi-

lization in other lands. He did not restrict

himself in terms of language, buying in

French, German, Spanish, Italian, and

Latin just as freely as in English, nor was

he put off by the format of an item; his

growing library soon included not only

books but pamphlets, broadsides, prints,

periodicals, and manuscripts.

Typical of Sutro’s acquisitions from

these London dealers were a series of

purchases he made in spring 1883 from

Bernard Quaritch. In March 1883, Quar-

itch sold him a large group of English

Civil War tracts and newspapers, which

had come on the market during the sale

of the Sunderland Library.14 In the same

month, Quaritch sold him, for the sum of

£5.10, a run (1688-1726) of the “Monthly

Mercuries.”15 Then, a few weeks later, he

bought from Quaritch a group of 1,005

parliamentary “occurrences,” correspond-

ing to the year 1641. 16 Thus we find Sutro

buying printed material of every type, indi-

vidual imprints as well as collections and

sets, that would enable a man of education

to read widely and deeply in the history

of European law, politics, religion, and

letters. So active was Sutro in this period

that within a year he had acquired close

to 35,000 volumes, and it was apparently

during this first whirlwind of buying that

he became known in London book circles

as the “California Book Man.”17

It was also in this period that Sutro

began to realize that, to continue at the

same pace and sustain his endeavor, he

would need to hire an associate. First, he

could not remain abroad indefinitely. His

family required his attention, as did his

San Francisco business interests. Second,

he had come to know enough about book

collecting and the formation of a pre-

eminent research library to grasp that he

could no longer operate entirely on his

own. Rather, he would increasingly need

the specialized knowledge and services of

a professional bookman. The person Sutro

found for this position was Carl Friedrich

Mayer, one of the many booksellers with

whom Sutro had dealings during his visits

to Germany.18 Mayer was a Munich dealer,

well versed in the antiquarian trade, with

very good language abilities. Furthermore,

he had compiled a catalogue of imprints

in the Buxheim Library, out of which

Sutro would acquire a great many of his

incunabula and early sixteenth-century

Adolph Sutro happily reposes in his library at his home in Sutro Heights.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 1 3

books. Mayer’s circumstances coincided

with Sutro’s needs. He was also intrigued

by Sutro’s plans to establish a free public

research library, and in late 1883, the two

reached an agreement. Mayer would move

to London, act as Sutro’s agent in purchas-

ing books, and oversee their subsequent

storage, cataloging, packing, and shipping.

Mayer began his work full-time as Sutro’s

“Librarian” in May 1884 and continued in

this capacity (receiving a monthly salary

of £20) through November 1886. He then

spent a further six months—from Decem-

ber 1886 through May 1887-working part-

time for Sutro, helping to wind down the

London operation.19

With Mayer in place, Sutro felt free to

finish his travels and to return to Califor-

nia, which he did later in 1884. Although

separated by several thousand miles, the

two kept in close contact via frequent cor-

respondence. During his first months of

employment, Mayer wrote to Sutro more

than once a week, gradually tapering off

to a letter every two weeks. His letters

indicate that he not only kept Sutro fully

up to date on his buying but also that he

followed, with very little deviation, Sutro’s

instructions about what to emphasize in

his purchases.

Since Sutro wished above all to create

a “reference” library, by which he meant

a library that would have practical value,

he decided that its strongest segment

should be science and technology. While

not abandoning his earlier focus on politi-

cal and cultural history, he gave Mayer to

understand that he should concentrate

on acquiring scientific and technical lit-

erature. Mayer took this instruction to

heart, although initially he found it to be

a challenge, for it went against his anti-

quarian instincts. For example, reporting

on purchases that he made at a Puttick &

Simpson auction of early June 1884 (only

weeks after he began his London assign-

ment), Mayer wrote, in his typically off-key

English: “For one of them I cannot ask

The gateway to Sutro Heights, San Francisco.

1 4 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

your indemnity. This Dutch printing of

1489 completes a very gap in our collec-

tion, because we want a ‘Delft’ printing.”20

He soon curbed these impulses, however,

and fell into line with Sutro’s instruc-

tions, which Sutro continuously repeated

were “to buy only useful books, no rare-

ties.”21 Mayer set about in very methodical

fashion to fulfill that dictate. Although he

sometimes bought directly from book-

shops and would also receive special

offers, Mayer—as one experienced in the

book trade—devoted most of his time to

buying at auctions. His buying was prin-

cipally done through three houses: Puttick

& Simpson, H. H. Hodgson, and Sotheby.

He would scrutinize their sale catalogs,

inspect the lots in advance, and then exe-

cute his bids, always keeping a sharp eye

out for works in the natural and physical

sciences, as well as in medicine and engi-

neering. In a sale at Hodgson’s in January

1885, for example, he reported to Sutro

that he had acquired “about 200 engi-

One of the most spectacular buildings ever constructed in San Francisco was the Cliff House, built by Sutro. Fire consumed the original Cliff House in 1894, and Sutro replaced it with this Victorian chateau. Sadly, it too, caught fire and burned in 1907.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 1 5

neering books and papers or periodicals,

among them very many privately printed

reports on railways, water supplies (of

various towns), harbours, sewage, etc. etc.

I got about 620 volumes of them for one

thousand and odd shillings. This is a very

useful increase of the technical part of the

library.”22 Some months later, he wrote in

a similar vein, informing Sutro that mate-

rial purchased from the Osterley Park Sale

had enabled “the completion of our collec-

tion of industrial arts.”23 In July 1885, he

reported that he had bought “some good

sets of scientific periodicals, and a com-

plete...copy of Journal and Proceedings of

the Royal Geographical Society. London,

altogether 76 vols.”24

Thus observant of Sutro’s instructions,

Mayer labored on—month after month—

to fill gaps in holdings already obtained

and to acquire essential new titles. From

San Francisco, Sutro remained actively

involved, exhorting Mayer to forge ahead

and often recommending specific books

and periodicals that he wanted. In certain

instances, the time between the issuance

of a catalog and the auction was sufficient

to allow Sutro to receive the catalog, mark

the items he wanted, and get it back to

Mayer before bids were due. Generally,

however, Sutro had to rely on his agent to

anticipate his wants, and that—after all—

was why he hired him. Moreover, Mayer

brought all of his technical acumen and

understanding of the book trade to bear

on his work. He was alert to bargains and

highly conscious of market values. For

example, a copy of the magnificently illus-

trated botanical work, Bateman’s Orchida-

ceae of Mexico, had sold in the Sunderland

sale for £77. Mayer considered this over-

priced, and later purchased a set at Puttick

& Simpson’s for only £17.25 His ability to

maneuver in this way and his grasp of the

market was a sore point with certain book-

dealers, who saw him and Sutro as inter-

lopers. The competition with Quaritch

was particularly intense and at times acri-

monious. A telling illustration occurred in

July 1885, when the two were bidding for a

lengthy run of the London Gazette: “I went

in having made up my mind to give up to

90. Quaritch was bidding against me very

excited and going up to 125—. I could not

get them. They were put down for Q. at

130—. Q. was very angry, but two days

after he apologized solemnly in Sotheby’s,

before the beginning of the sale.”26 What

Quaritch and other dealers resented was

that Sutro, the “California Book Man,”

was competing against them on their own

terms. He was not a dealer himself, but

by using Mayer as a full-time agent, he

managed to buy at cut-rate prices. Mayer

summed it up as follows:

Generally I must say he [Quaritch]

is not very inclined to do business

with you through me, looking at me

as an intruder who takes the profit

from the trade in an never heard of

and in his eyes quite illegitimate way.

The dealers know very well, that your

The most famous cartographic treasure acquired by Sutro was a spectacular wall map of the world by Pieter van den Keere, c. 1610. It measures 78 x 50 inches and is the only known copy.

1 6 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

and my way to collect your library is

saving money, which would be to be

paid to them, in a way I sometimes

already explained and representing at

least one-third of the usual costs.27

While the dealers may have objected to

Sutro’s tactics, there was little or nothing

which they could do to block them. Like a

businessman returning maximum profit

on a minimum investment, Sutro pursued

his strategy, with Mayer finding bargains

everywhere. Not that Sutro’s investment

was trivial (his basic monthly allocation for

purchases was £30028), but Mayer generally

strove to make every dollar count. Further-

more, consistent with Sutro’s overall plan,

Mayer spent his funds almost exclusively

on bulk purchases.29 Occasionally, how-

ever, captivated by the prospect of some

bibliographic gem, he would try to tempt

Sutro to test the market and acquire it.

In late 1884, for example, Mayer learned

of the impending sale of a number of

rare imprints, to include—as the piece de

resistance—a Mazarin Bible, “which will be

sold...I fear not under £5000.”30 Although

Mayer’s estimate proved high, Sutro could

have afforded this amount. Neverthe-

less, though he greatly admired the craft

and beauty of early printed books, Sutro

dismissed the idea out of hand, remind-

ing Mayer that his principal interest lay

in developing the technical and scientific

side of his library. Acknowledging this

fact, Mayer wrote back:

“But I understand quite well and agree

thoroughly with you, that we can buy for

this sum of about £3,500 very many books

of a much greater importance in the chief

line of your library....”31

The policy that Sutro followed in this

instance, and his refocusing attention to

the core emphasis on scientific materials,

guided his efforts throughout. He had con-

ceived an overarching design and purpose

for his library, and while its boundaries

may have been rather loosely demarcated,

they assumed more concrete form as time

went on. Furthermore, Sutro never lost his

focus or discipline. In his essay “Evolution

of a Library,” Hubert Howe Bancroft pro-

vided a vivid image of the rabid, obsessive

collector who must possess a particular

object.32 Sutro was the antithesis of this

type, once he had determined the direction

(Left) Bookbinding with a gold-stamped image of the “Honest Miner.” Sutro, in his heroic campaign to build the tunnel under Mt. Davidson, issued several publications. For these, he commissioned a special binding as shown here.

(Right) This staged photograph of the great book collector was made in London in 1869. Photograph by London Portrait Company. Sutro himself spent countless hours swinging a pick in his tunnel under Mt. Davidson, Nevada. He was an inspiration to his workforce.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 1 7

of his library. He was rational, methodical,

and farsighted, rarely driven in his pursuit

of books by emotion or possessiveness.

Although Mayer spent the majority of

his time scouting and buying books and

periodicals, he had—as noted above—a

number of other responsibilities. Sutro’s

London operation became a small-scale

business in itself. It was headquartered

at Brooks Wharf, on the Upper Thames,

where Sutro rented office and warehouse

space. When he was not busy at the auc-

The first leaf of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (1478) is adorned with a striking illuminated initial and border decorations. Sutro purchased this incunabula in 1883 as a duplicate from the Royal State Library in Munich.

tion houses, Mayer would spend time

analyzing catalogs, cutting and pasting,

in order to prepare himself for the next

round of bids and purchases. Materials

that he acquired were delivered to Brooks

Wharf, where they were reconciled against

the lists, catalogued, and later packed into

crates (protected by oilcloth) for shipment

to San Francisco. Materials in disrepair

were sent off for patching and backing

and—if Mayer judged it necessary—for

rebinding. Substantial quantities of mate-

rial received such treatment, as well as

cleaning and fumigation. At the same

time that Mayer settled into his London

assignment, Sutro hired a London bro-

ker, Robert Warner, as his business agent.

Warner rented him the Brooks Wharf

offices and oversaw all of the financial

transactions. He employed a clerk to check

in the books purchased by Mayer. After ver-

ification by Mayer, Warner would approve

invoices for payment. And like Mayer, he

corresponded frequently with Sutro, send-

ing him monthly statements of all expen-

ditures and transactions. He took a very

hands-on approach, and—whether in keep-

ing with Sutro’s instructions to him or sim-

ply out of his own high-minded sense of

duty—kept a close eye on both Mayer and

on E. Hofstätder, another German book-

seller who served as Mayer’s assistant. As

Warner put it, “I generally call in the office

where your books are daily.”33 Warner

also authorized payment of their monthly

salaries to Mayer and Hofstätder. Sutro

thus incurred a series of regular business

expenses, including office rental, labor,

cartage, preservation and binding, pack-

ing case construction, warehousing, post-

age, insurance, and shipping. Indeed, the

records show that for every dollar that he

spent on books, Sutro spent an additional

thirty-three cents in England on these

ancillary expenses. Funds to meet all of

these outlays were drawn by Warner on an

account that Sutro established in London

and replenished on a monthly basis. After

several months of service to Sutro, Warner

wrote that the operation was consuming so

much of his time that he would henceforth

need to charge a commission of 1% on all

purchases made.34 Sutro does not appear to

have raised any objections. Although the

London operation appeared to function

smoothly, Sutro evidently decided, near

1 8 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

the end of 1886, to wind it down. The let-

ters from Mayer, so predictable until then,

suddenly dried up, and while there is no

indication that Sutro became disenchanted

with his work, by late spring 1887, Mayer

was off his payroll and presumably back

in Munich. His association with Sutro had

lasted nearly four years.

Sutro, however, was certainly not

through with book buying; he had sim-

ply transferred his base to San Francisco

and returned to being his own buyer. Fur-

thermore, he continued (with one great

exception) to acquire along the same broad

lines, seeking out scientific and techni-

cal materials whenever possible, but also

converting opportunities to enrich the

historical and literary components of his

library. An example of the latter is a col-

lection that Sutro acquired in December

1887, belonging to a fellow San Francis-

can, one Walter M. Leman. Leman was a

retired actor who, during the course of a

long career on the stage, had assembled

an outstanding collection of early plays

and dramatic works, as well as manu-

scripts and other publications bearing on

the theme of the theatre. Sutro persuaded

Leman, who had lost his sight and hence

his ability to use the material, to sell him

the collection, which contained some 600

titles.35 Sutro also continued to expand his

holdings in European history and letters,

acquiring from various dealers in England

and Scotland long runs of eighteenth and

nineteenth-century British newspapers

and journals as well as key titles that he

lacked in the field of travel and discovery.

From an American dealer, Charles Soule,

he acquired in 1889 a group of 700 “Com-

monwealth pamphlets,” which Soule had

located during a buying trip to London.

Sutro’s approach also remained consis-

tent—buy in bulk to obtain the best unit

cost, and swallow the inevitable dupli-

cates. As Soule wrote: “I can get the whole

lot at a price which will allow me to offer

them at $210, or 30 cents for each pam-

phlet. I do not know that this is a very

One of the many great flower books in the Sutro

collection is the three-volume Les Roses by Pierre-Joseph Redoute. Published

in thirty parts between 1817 and 1824, it contains

169 exquisite hand-colored stipple engravings.

Redoute was called the “Raphael of Flowers.”

Sutro, in his collecting, purchased dozens of spectacular natural history books. Shown here is the title page and a hand-colored plate from M. E. Bloch’s spectacular Naturgeschichte der Fische (Berlin, 1782–95).

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 1 9

exhorbitant price, except that many in the

lot might be duplicates of what you already

have...”36 During the post-Mayer period,

some of Sutro’s strongest acquisitions

were in the natural and physical sciences.

Preeminent among these was Sutro’s pur-

chase, in 1893, of the Woodward Library.

Formed by a creative San Francisco entre-

preneur, Robert Blum Woodward, this

library focused on the natural sciences

ornithology, botany, and zoology—with

some minor holdings in geography and

travel literature. Though not a large collec-

tion—it numbered only several hundred

volumes—it was remarkable for the

depth and quality of its holdings, many

of which contained superb hand-tinted

plates.37 Sutro’s acquisition of this library

was followed some three years later by his

purchase of the Wells Chemical Library.

When the Wells Library, which had been

developed by the secretary of the London

Chemical Society, arrived in 1896 by ship

from London and was transported to the

Montgomery Block quarters, its books and

other publications filled twelve cases.

None of these acquisitions, however,

valuable as they were, could begin to match

the collection of Mexicana that Sutro had

bought during a trip that he made in 1889

to Mexico and Cuba. At a single stroke,

Sutro succeeded in acquiring the most

important and complete collection of nine-

teenth century Mexican political, religious

and related imprints and ephemera to be

found anywhere in the world. This collec-

tion, numbering in the tens of thousands,

not only greatly increased the size of Sutro’s

Library, but it also broadened its focus as

well. Yet apart from this single, but spec-

tacular branching out, Sutro adhered to

the design that he first mapped out for

his library many years before. The fidelity

to its emphasis on science and technology

was reiterated in the mid-1890s by George

Moss, then Sutro’s principal librarian, in

some notes that Moss compiled about the

current state and future needs of the library.

“It is intended by Mr. Sutro,” wrote Moss,

“that the library shall be a free reference

library, and that scientific and technical

literature shall be made the most promi-

nent department.”38 “Mr. Sutro,” he went

on to say, “fully realizes that he has a great

deal of purchasing to do to fill in gaps in

nearly every department and hopes soon

to be able to give the library his full atten-

tion and place it on an equal footing with

any reference library in America.”39 This

was an ambitious goal, but one that Sutro

seemed well on his way to fulfilling. Unfor-

tunately, however, his book collecting days

were coming to an end. In the few years

of life that remained to him, first political

entanglements and then a failing mind

would prevent Sutro from giving any fur-

ther attention to the library.

spECial strEnGtHs of tHE sUtro liBrary

and KEy soUrCEs of MatErial

In 1883, before refining his thoughts on

what his library should ultimately com-

prise, Sutro made a series of striking

acquisitions which, collectively, not only

doubled its size but placed it among the

world’s foremost collections for certain

genres and fields. He first struck at the his-

Found in the Woodward’s Gardens collection, purchased by Sutro in 1893, is a large folio filled with exquisite Chinese

watercolors of natural history subjects ranging from plants to exotic fish.

2 0 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

toric Sunderland Library sale, which took

place in London in mid-1883. The Sun-

derland Library, formed originally in the

1690s and early 1700s by Charles Spen-

cer, third Earl of Sunderland, was tremen-

dously rich in material from the period of

the English Civil Wars and also contained

significant and unique political and social

material from the eighteenth and nine-

teenth centuries. Out of this library alone

Sutro obtained some 30,000 imprints.40

In addition to buying these at auction, he

may also have purchased a portion of them

from Quaritch, since Quaritch had man-

aged to monopolize two-thirds of the Sun-

derland sales.41 Out of other benchmark

sales, such as the Hamilton and Crossley,

and through purchases made later by him-

self and by Mayer, Sutro amplified and

deepened his holdings on English social,

political, and religious history, with the

result that he grew to hold one the richest

such collections to be found in any library.

After this fruitful round of buying in

England, Sutro travelled to the continent in

the summer of 1883. There soon followed

a memorable series of acquisitions. The

first came in September, when he bought

a major part of the Buxheim Library. This

library had originally belonged to the Car-

thusian Monastery in Buxheim, Bavaria,

but after the secularization of the reli-

gious orders, had passed into the hands

of a nobleman. It was now up for auction,

and Sutro acquired significant portions of

it—several thousand volumes—including

manuscripts, incunabula, and a great many

books from the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries notable for their woodcut and

other illustrations. A month later, Sutro

was in Augsburg to bid at the auction of the

library of the Duke of Dalberg. He again

bought extensively, acquiring as many as

8,000 volumes. Sutro’s purchases from

the Dalberg Library helped crystallize his

emergent emphasis on scientific and tech-

nical literature, for many of the books he

obtained were in the natural sciences and

medicine, including the transactions and

journals of a number of learned societ-

ies, and were rich in plates and illustra-

tions.42 As remarkable as the Buxheim

and Dalberg acquisitions were, they were

nevertheless exceeded, in both quantity

and quality, by Sutro’s third German book-

buying success—his purchase of duplicate

imprints from the Royal State Library in

Munich. The Kingdom of Bavaria, to which

this library then belonged, was in dire need

of money, and Sutro had secured permis-

sion from a high-level government official

to purchase such duplicates as he wanted.

Moreover, his opportunity to do so coin-

cided with his blossoming relationship

with Charles Mayer. Anxious to continue

his travels and reach the Near East, Sutro

engaged Mayer to work through the dupli-

cates. Mayer took to the task energetically,

and when he had finished, had increased

the size of Sutro’s library by some 13,000

volumes. When finally packed for ship-

ment to San Francisco, it took 86 cases to

hold all of the Munich State Library books

acquired by Sutro.43 Still more impressive,

however, was that 33 of these cases held

incunabula. Thirty-three cases of “cradle

books”! It is a staggering statistic. It is not

clear precisely how many incunables were

once found in the Sutro Library, and the

One of the curiosities in the Banks collection is an English

broadside (c. 1790) inviting people to view a 1,200 pound

bison. Printed in Kingston, the broadside stated that the

beast had eyes like “balls of fire.” Attached to the

document is an actual tuft of hair from the great North

American mammal.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 2 1

The Sutro Library makes available a magnificent collection of color plate books. One of the outstanding examples is James Bateman’s The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala (1837–1843). Bibliographer Wilfrid Blunt called it “the largest, the heaviest, but also probably the finest orchid book ever issued.” Only 125 copies were printed. The line drawing on the top right satirizes the immense size of the elephant folio.

2 2 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

exact number is now of historical inter-

est only. Sutro himself estimated that he

owned over 4,000.44 There were certainly

at least 3,000, or approximately one-

seventh of all such books known to be in

existence at the time. The range and excel-

lence of the Sutro incunabula were attested

to by a Cornell University scholar, Profes-

sor George Lincoln Burr, who spent sev-

eral days inspecting them during a visit to

San Francisco in 1892. After returning to

Cornell, Burr wrote to Sutro: “It is, I think,

beyond all comparison the best collection

in America, both as to numbers and as to

quality of the books of the 15th century; and

I gravely doubt if it has any rival this side

of the Atlantic for its literature of the 16th

century.”45 In addition to his purchases

from these three major libraries, Sutro also

acquired books of a similar nature, perhaps

several thousand volumes in all, from deal-

ers and bookshops in Munich, Heidelberg,

Ellwangen, and other cities. His acquisi-

tions in Germany thus consolidated the

second pillar of his library—the incunabula

and early printed books, focused in par-

ticular on the sixteenth-century struggles

for religious and civil liberties in the Ger-

man states, the study and development of

cartography and the natural sciences, and

European travel and discovery in the Age of

Reconnaissance.

A third principal strength of the Sutro

Library, as noted earlier, was its Mexican

collection. Although Sutro made two book-

buying trips to Mexico, it was the second

of these, in 1889, that vaulted him onto

the top rung of collectors of Mexicana.

On that trip, he encountered for sale the

entire stock of one of Mexico’s most dis-

tinguished bookshops, the Librería Aba-

diano, and living up to Robert Cowan’s

image, he promptly bought all of it. The

range of material that he acquired from the

Abadiano was extraordinary. It included

thousands of titles published in Mexico

from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth

century, among them exemplars of the

earliest printing presses in America,

Reproduced is the first leaf of the celebrated. Mishneh Torah of Moses Maimonides. Spain or Italy, 1299. Known asthe “Great Eagle” of Jewish learning, Maimonides remains the most illustrious and revered Jewish name in the post-Talmudic period. The Mishneh Torah (The Second Torah) was the only text written in Hebrew by the famed scholar and physician. Maimonides’ work is a complete codification and summary of rabbinical law, religion, and ethics. This beautifully preserved manuscript of 217 vellum leaves was completed just seventy-five years after his death and 175 years before the first printed version.

Receipt for Sutro’s purchase of Hebrew manuscripts and rare books from the estate of Jerusalem antiquities dealer Moses W. Shapira.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 2 3

religious tracts and Church documents,

colonial manuscripts, and early chroni-

cles of the Spanish conquest and coloni-

zation. It also included rare and scarce

periodicals and government publications,

and—as its centerpiece—a collection of

approximately 35,000 pamphlets, broad-

sides, and flyers produced during the first

half of the nineteenth century, document-

ing the Mexican War of Independence and

the country’s subsequent political travail.

As a documentary and bibliographic source

for nineteenth-century Mexican history, the

material acquired by Sutro was unrivaled.46

What exactly motivated Sutro to buy up

the Abadiano stock and thus branch out

into the field of Mexicana is not clear. He

may simply have yielded to the impulse to

acquire the collection. On the other hand,

the strengths of the collection in the history

of mining and civil-ecclesiastical conflict—

dominant themes in Mexican history from

colonial times to the Porfiriato—were areas

that Sutro had consistently emphasized.

Mexico, furthermore, was obviously inte-

gral to collecting on early California and the

Southwest, which Sutro briefly considered

developing as a special focus.

Sutro’s library had many other areas of

strength, almost all of which complemented

the three major groupings described above.

These included its Shakesperian materi-

als;47 its great collections of English parlia-

mentary papers and proceedings (which

Lord Macaulay had reputedly used in writ-

ing his History of England...) and of codi-

fied English laws, (from the library of Lord

Cairn); its collection of the papers and man-

uscripts of Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820);48

and its collection of unique medieval

Hebrew manuscripts.

Although forming one of the smaller

segments within the Library, the Sutro’s

Yemenite Hebrew manuscripts (which

number some 167) are among its most

rare and priceless holdings. Ranging from

scrolls of extraordinary length (80 to 90

feet), to individual leaves, codices, and

manuscript books, the collection focuses

primarily on religious matters, provid-

ing commentaries on the Talmud, Torah,

Mishnah, and other sacred and legal

texts. It also includes a scroll of Jewish

law dating from c. 1299, purportedly writ-

ten by the scholar Maimonides. Sutro had

acquired the material from the estate of the

Jerusalem antiquities dealer Moses W. Sha-

pira.49 From the moment of its arrival in

San Francisco, Sutro’s Hebraica—perhaps

because of its antiquity and its importance

for Biblical studies and exegesis (and also,

no doubt, because of an earlier forgery per-

petrated by Shapira)—attracted widespread

interest, on both sides of the Atlantic. “The

Directors of the British Museum,” reported

one article, “will send out men to overhaul

these manuscripts and definitely ascertain

their character and value.”50

While there is no record that this particu-

lar inspection actually took place, the man-

uscripts were nevertheless authenticated

by various experts. In his reminiscences

about Sutro and his Library, Robert Cowan

drew special attention to the strengths of

the Hebraica: “Dr. Roubin...had charge

of the Hebrew books and manuscripts.

The best thing he did was to discover the

manuscript of Maimonides, presumed to

be the only one in existence.”51

A curious footnote to these exceptional

holdings in Sutro’s Library was its early

Californiana. It held extremely little in this

area. Sutro had contemplated building up

this part of his library and, while in Spain

in early 1884, had commissioned the copy-

ing of a number of documents bearing

on sixteenth-century explorations of the

California coast, found in the Archive of

the Indies. His interest at this point was

very keen and, to further the initiative, he

enlisted the assistance of the chief of the

United States legation in Madrid, John

Foster. He then contracted with a Spanish

scholar, Jose Gonzalez Verger, to research

the documents in Seville and produce

translations. After some months, however,

he wrote to Gonzalez Verger, requesting

that he discontinue the work. The latter

tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. He

was probably unaware that Sutro had been

warned by another of his hired Spanish

hands, Manuel Peralta, that the project

was essentially a waste of time, because

his fellow San Franciscan, H. H. Bancroft,

had preceded him.52

Japanese leaf painting. Sutro, like many patrons of the arts in the late nineteenth century, collected Orientalia. These delicate leaf paintings are superb examples of this exotic art form.

2 4 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

The Sutro rare book collection was stuffed into a variety of spaces in the

basement of the San Francisco Public Library. The Sutro moved into this civic

center location in August 1923.

Sutro Library is known in botanical circles for its

sixteen-volume herbarium of Robert James, eighth Baron Petre. Lord Petre sponsored

the plant collecting of Quaker John Bartram

(1699–1777) of Philadelphia, the first American botanist.

Self-taught, Bartrum became North America’s foremost

plant collector, sending seeds of trees and shrubs to the great estates in England.

Thousands of pressed botanical specimens are

carefully preserved in this remarkable collection dating from around 1740. Bartram is considered the “father of

American botany.”

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 2 5

Early CarE, apprECiation, and

UsE of sUtro’s liBrary

As has been seen, by the time he returned to

San Francisco in 1884, Sutro had amassed

a collection well in excess of 100,000 vol-

umes. As these arrived in the city, they were

brought first to the warehouse on Battery

Street and then—when this facility ran out

of room—were taken to the Montgomery

Block offices. The books of course had to

be stored, but that was only the beginning.

Sutro was actively pondering the ques-

tion of where to site his library and was

familiarizing himself, through specialized

publications that Mayer procured, with

the latest European theories and opinions

about library design and organization.

Meanwhile, he set up a full-scale adminis-

trative and technical operation based in the

Montgomery Block offices. George Moss, a

highly cultivated man with good organiza-

tional skills, was placed in charge and given

the title of Librarian. He managed every-

thing and soon became indispensable.

Moss’ chief assistant was the temperamen-

tal Frederic Perkins, who had recently been

dismissed as head of the San Francisco

Public Library. Perkins was the principal

cataloger and also attended to a number

of other duties. The library employed two

other specialists, a bookbinder and a book-

sewer, as well as a number of clerks. The

operation was not inexpensive, but saving

money was the last thing on Sutro’s mind,

since all of this activity was but the prelude

to constructing his library and to endowing

the city and its citizenry with a cultural and

intellectual resource of permanent value.

In addition to the rental of offices, there

were expenses for building materials, such

as furniture, shelving, and bookcases, and

for preservation and office supplies. There

were fees for janitorial services and a night

watchman, and salaries for the professional

staff.53 There were also special construc-

tion projects that added to the expenses. In

1887, for example, a special room was built

for fumigating, and in 1892 Moss had a

separate bindery room constructed. Sutro

was often away, attending to other busi-

ness, but Moss kept him fully informed of

all activities within the library as well as any

developments affecting it from without,

such as inquiries from prospective users.

Typical of such communication from Moss

was a June 1893 letter to Sutro, concerning

matters both internal and external:

Dear Sir: Col. Little handed me a

copy of permit sent to Prof. Davidson.

You will remember that you have Mr.

Hopkins’ translation locked in your

desk, so hope it won’t be asked for

before your return. Costansos’ diary

had better be bound and paged before

going into other hands (I mean the

translation). There will be less chance

of loss & damage than in loose sheets.

Mr. Perkins is cataloguing what we

call the Reformation pamphlets, a

great many do not contain Mr. May-

er’s slip, and many slips written by

him are incorrect; as so very many

of them are rare & valuable it is bet-

ter to have a compact record of them

and well marked. There are a few days

work in the bindery...54

As Moss’ letter implies, Sutro’s library

was attracting a growing body of interest.

Initially, it will be recalled, much of the

interest was founded on curiosity, stimu-

lated by newspaper articles which reported

on Sutro’s library in much the same style as

they would report on the discovery of a new

comet or a heretofore unknown ancient

city. That is, to the privileged few who had

seen it, it was a wonder to behold. And

indeed, an almost carnival-like atmosphere

surrounded the unloading of the hundreds

of cases of Sutro’s books onto the San Fran-

cisco wharves. As word passed that another

shipment was in, crowds would gather to

witness the spectacle.

As the novelty wore off, however, the

interest that was displayed increasingly

came from people who either wanted to

know more about the library as a potential

source for future research or from those

who wanted to consult it out of immedi-

ate need. The latter were primarily stu-

dents and faculty from the University of

California at Berkeley and Stanford. The

librarians at both institutions, J. C. Row-

ell and Edwin Woodruff, respectively, took

an active interest in the Sutro Library and

promoted its use. Word about the library

gradually spread to a wider audience, pri-

marily through the descriptions of it given

by visiting scholars who were able to view

and use it. Mention has already been made

of the Cornell scholar, George Burr, who

considered the Sutro to be the leading

repository in the country for Renaissance

and Reformation studies. Burr’s colleague

and former Cornell University President

Andrew Dickson White, provided perhaps

the most glowing testimony, when he said

about the library—following an 1892 visit:

“With considerable acquaintance among

the libraries of the United States, I should

rank this one already among the first four

in value, and it is rapidly increasing.”55

Indeed, of all the library’s early scholarly

visitors, none took a keener interest in it

than White. What most impressed him

about Sutro’s commitment was the prom-

ise that it held, and the vision that Sutro

commanded, for enriching learning and

research. “All to whom I have spoken,” he

wrote to Sutro, “...joined me in my wonder

at the foresight and depth of thought which

has prompted you not to create [only] a

popular public library, which any one can

do, but one of the great libraries of the

World for scholars,...”56 Since White knew

that Sutro was still attempting to build his

library and to fill in gaps, he made a point

of informing him about collections that

were about to come on the market. In Jan-

uary 1893, for example, on the heels of a

visit to Paris, he wrote to inform Sutro that

the library of the just-deceased French his-

torian Ernst Renan was soon to be up for

sale. Then six months later came another

letter from White, to let Sutro know of

the impending sale of “a large library in

Vienna....consisting of a ‘choice collection

of Jewish printed books and manuscripts,’

2 6 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

belonging to the chief Rabbi of the city.”57

Although Sutro displayed some interest in

Renan’s Library, he did not make a serious

attempt to buy it, nor did he pursue the

Rabbi’s collection.

White was concerned that, even in Cali-

fornia, Sutro’s library was still little known.

Yet testimonies such as his, appearing in

the national press, were slowly changing

the situation. Between January 1886 and

March 1892, the library received 705 visi-

tors, including many from other regions

of the United States.58 That the library was

achieving some measure of recognition in

these years is also evidenced in the many

letters from librarians and curators, from

both the United States and Europe, who

wrote seeking employment in it, as well

as in the continuing offers of material that

Sutro regularly received.

Far from being mothballed, then, Sutro’s

library in the decade 1885–1895 was under

the control and supervision of two highly

qualified librarians. Progress was slowly

being made to arrange, catalog, and pre-

serve its more than 200,000 volumes, and

systematic efforts were also underway to

expand its holdings in selected areas. In

addition, word was gradually filtering out

about the library and sporadic use was

being made of it by local students and

scholars. These activities, all knit together

by Sutro’s larger aims for the library,

augured well for the future, yet they were

no more than a down payment. Until Sutro

devised a concrete plan of action and pro-

vided the funding needed to implement

it, the dream of the library would remain

unfulfilled. Perhaps because Sutro had

spoken for so long about his plans for the

library, the lack of specific action created a

growing sense of unease among some of

its enthusiasts. As Mary Barnes, of Stan-

ford’s Department of History and a fre-

quent user of the library, expressed it in a

letter that she wrote to Moss in September

1895: “I hope that we are about to see bet-

ter days for the library, and that it will soon

become as famous as it deserves to be.”59

Unfortunately, however, the better days

that Barnes, Andrew White, and many

others envisioned for the Sutro Library

were foiled by a series of events. Sutro

had simply waited too long to address and

resolve the various questions surround-

ing the disposition of the library: where

to locate it, what exact relationship—legal

and otherwise—should it have to the city,

what would be the nature of its internal

operations, and how to structure its gov-

ernance and administration. Time ran

out on Sutro. In 1894, he agreed to stand

for election as mayor of San Francisco,

persuaded to do so by a reformist group

that opposed the power exerted over local

business and civic affairs by the Southern

Pacific Railway. Sutro was well-known and

extremely popular, owing to his numerous

philanthropic activities. He won the elec-

tion by a clear majority. Yet he had none

of the political skills needed to succeed

in this position. His two years as mayor

were a complete disaster, and when he

left office in January 1897, Sutro’s health

had been seriously undermined. Further-

more, his mind began to deteriorate rap-

idly. Within another year, in early 1898,

his children intervened and sought the

protection of the court. His eldest child,

Emma Sutro Merritt, was appointed as

guardian to oversee all of his business

affairs, including the Library. In August

1898, Sutro died. Emma Merritt did her

best to hold the library operation together,

but events were conspiring against her.

Sutro’s illness and withdrawal from any

involvement in the library had necessarily

brought significant new acquisitions to a

halt. While efforts were still being made

in early 1898 to maintain the inflow of

numerous technical and scientific publi-

cations received gratis from government

agencies and learned societies, offers of

material made by dealers and private col-

(Opposite page) A Sutro Library staff member gave a tour to an official from the Mexican government while the collection was located at the San Francisco Public Library. The photograph was probably taken in the early 1950s.

(Left) From 1958 until the close of 1982, the State located the Sutro in the bottom floor of the Gleeson Library of the University of San Francisco. USF leased 14,000 square feet to the Library for the nominal fee of $1.00 per year.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 2 7

lectors were politely turned down.60 In

addition to dealing with Sutro’s absence,

the library suffered a second major blow

when, after a lengthy illness, George Moss

died in early 1898.61 Moss had been the

heart of the operation. Moreover, Frederic

Perkins had recently left the employ of the

library to return to the East Coast. Thus, by

the time of Sutro’s death, the library had

lost its chief administrator and its main cat-

aloger, the two individuals who formed the

core of its professional staff. After Sutro’s

death, work in the library largely ground

to a halt. The executors of Sutro’s estate,

Emma Merritt and W. R. H. Adamson,

continued the policy of allowing inspec-

tion and use of the library by local and vis-

iting scholars. Other activities, however,

such as cataloging, cleaning, and binding,

were suspended. Sutro had been involved

in myriad business ventures, and until his

finances were fully sorted out and his estate

settled, library expenditures would need

to be reduced considerably. When Emma

Merritt warned her sister after Moss’ death,

that “our finances have not permitted us to

hire another librarian,”62 it was clear that

Sutro’s plans were in jeopardy.

dEMisE of tHE liBrary:

1906 and its aftErMatH

In retrospect, of course, it is clear that

Sutro’s failure to either initiate construc-

tion of the library or to leave explicit

instructions concerning the matter in his

will foretold a painful history to come. Yet

while Sutro still had his health, the future

was full of promise. His first choice of a site

for the library was a large piece of property

at the extreme western edge of the city. On

this land, which came to be known as Sutro

Heights, he had laid out several acres of

beautifully landscaped gardens, accompa-

nied by statuary, pathways, and ponds, and

a palatial building in which to house and

display his collection of art and artifacts.63

Sutro planned to construct the library on a

protected point of this land, from which it

would command an inspiring view of the

Pacific Ocean. The library, in addition to

housing his collection, would have “abun-

dant room and conveniences for those

who desire to pursue special studies and

investigations.”64 He invited various dig-

nitaries to visit the property and to exam-

ine the preliminary design for the library.

A particularly keen supporter of the plan

was President Holden of the University of

California, who toured the property with a

large contingent of faculty, assuring Sutro

that “the closest relations with his library

would be courted, for it would be of inesti-

mable value in many departments of Uni-

versity effort.”65

At this time, in the 1880s, Sutro Heights

lay at some distance from the populated

sections of San Francisco. Such isolation,

Sutro initially thought, would work to the

advantage of the library (“In ancient Greece,

all places of learning and study were located

far from the fret and worry of city life...’66).

Later, he may have begun to have some

doubts on this score. What fundamentally

caused Sutro, however, to change his mind

about locating the library on Sutro Heights

was the advice that various “experts” gave

him, and which he unfortunately accepted

as scientific, that the fog and sea air of the

2 8 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

Heights would be damaging to his books.

Persuaded of the veracity of this claim,

Sutro began to look elsewhere in the city.

Within several years, he had decided upon

a new location, a twenty-six acre tract that

he owned near the geographical center of

San Francisco. This property, on gently ris-

ing land just south of Golden Gate Park

and below what was then called Mount

Parnassus (known today as Mt. Sutro ),

also afforded a striking view of the ocean,

the headlands across the Golden Gate,

and other scenic vistas. By the early 1890s,

plans for the library had advanced consid-

erably, with some of its actual design fea-

tures made public:

It...was to be of brick and stone

and 100 feet by 200 feet in size. The

building was to end in a semicircular

bow to form reading and newspaper

rooms. The middle of the building,

to a width of 60 feet, was to be open

from the ground to the glass roof

which covered the structure. Seven

stories of stack were designed to open

upon this middle space. The ranges

were to be 20 feet in length and 7 feet

in height. ...it was designed to provide

space for half a million volumes and

was to cost $300,000.67

Sutro’s decision to locate the library

on this parcel of land coincided with the

efforts of the University of California to

establish a new campus in San Francisco

to house its schools of law, medicine, phar-

macy, and dentistry (or what were then

termed the “Affiliated Colleges”). Reason-

ing that both the professional schools and

the library would benefit substantially

from sitting next to each other and cit-

ing such examples as Harvard, Princeton,

Yale, and the Universities of Oxford, Cam-

bridge, Paris, and Berlin, Sutro offered to

deed half of the acreage to the University of

California. Berkeley’s administrators were

by now quite familiar with the magnitude

of Sutro’s Library, but to ensure that such

understanding was shared by the Regents

and members of the Affiliated College’s

(Above) Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820). Sutro acquired a substantial collection of the famed naturalist’s papers. Banks participated in Captain James Cook’s first great voyage (1768–1771). Banks indentified many botanical specimens and sent Lt. William Bligh to the South Seas on the H.M.S. Bounty to collect breadfruit. (Bottom) Advertisement

for “Abadiano’s Ancient Book-store.” In 1889, Sutro purchased the entire stock of

this distinguished and venerable Mexico City bookstore. It included a treasure trove of early

Mexican imprints, pamphlets, and manuscripts.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 2 9

site selection committee, Sutro prepared a

formal proposal summarizing the history

and strengths of the library and including

parts of the testimonies furnished by Burr

and White.68 Although Sutro apparently

encountered some opposition to his pro-

posal, the Regents were delighted with it,

and voted unanimously in October 1895 to

accept the offer. In negotiating the condi-

tions of the deed of gift, Sutro also restated

his commitment to locate his library on

the adjoining thirteen acres and to move

toward its construction in the near future.

According to one of his associates, W. C.

Little, Sutro estimated that the building

would be completed within five years.69

Sutro had persuaded the Regents of the

value that his library would hold for the

university, and their acceptance of his

offer was now bound up with his assur-

ance that the library would either be built

or, were he to die before this took place,

that a trust would be set up to accom-

plish the same.70 In the discussion that

occurred prior to the Regents’ vote, some

concern was expressed about whether—in

the event that Sutro should die first—his

executors could be compelled to carry out

his stated wishes, in the absence of legal

language to this effect. The Regents, not

wanting to “crowd” Sutro, apparently took

it on good faith that Sutro would soon

“have everything in shape, so that his

wishes regarding the library would be car-

ried out to the letter.”71 Their decision to

omit this clause from the agreement was

a fateful one, for in less than three years,

Sutro was dead, having totally failed to get

things “in shape” and leaving his heirs to

entangle themselves in a web of litigation.

While he may have died without revis-

ing his 1882 will, there could be no doubt

as to Sutro’s own intentions for the library.

He had stated repeatedly that it should be

opened and maintained for free use by

scholars and the public and that its loca-

tion should be within the city of San Fran-

cisco. He had finally narrowed its location

to the site adjoining the land that he had

donated to the University of California.72

He had researched its design and orga-

nization extensively, had described the

endowment that would fund its continued

operations, and had jotted notes about its

administration and board of trustees.73

Yet, since none of the plan had been set

down in a finished document, in the wake

of his death doubts were immediately

expressed about whether it would ever be

executed.74 Even if Sutro’s heirs—his six

children—had been united in wanting to

honor their father’s wishes (virtually all

of which were a matter of public record),

the complicated finances of Sutro’s estate

would have tied their hands initially. The

heirs, however, were not united. On one

side stood his daughter and eldest child,

Emma Sutro Merritt, who believed firmly

that the family ought to fulfill Sutro’s

aims for the library. On the other stood a

majority of her five siblings, who opposed

doing so and wanted to sell the library. In

his 1882 will, Sutro had bequeathed to his

daughter Emma “all of my books, papers,

scrapbooks, manuscripts, and pictures

contained in my library.”75 It was on the

basis of this clause in the will that Emma

claimed that the library was hers. Her

five siblings challenged this interpreta-

tion, arguing that when their father wrote

this in 1882, he had a private library of no

more than five to six thousand volumes

and that common sense dictated that the

great library which he subsequently devel-

oped could not reasonably be covered by

it.76 In 1900, W. R. H. Adamson, execu-

tor of Sutro’s will, filed a petition to sell

the library on behalf of the majority of

the heirs. Emma S. Merritt filed a counter

petition to block the sale and to obtain a

ruling in favor of her interpretation.

The issue was bound up with litigation

over other parts of Sutro’s estate and did

not get settled for another thirteen years.

The inability of Sutro’s children to resolve

their dispute may have provided good copy

for the newspapers, but it had tragic con-

sequences for the library.

As noted above, an effort was made to

provide some level of service in the library

following Sutro’s death. But after a few

years had passed, the library was essen-

tially shut down. In place of a librarian,

a “custodian,” Ella Weaver, was hired, to

watch over the collection and perhaps per-

form some minimal listing, sorting, and

arranging. As Robert Cowan put it, “Mrs.

Weaver did nothing at the library except

keep the doors closed.”77 While Sutro’s

children contested ownership of the

library, it remained in storage, locked up

in the Battery Street warehouse and in the

Montgomery Block offices. Had they man-

aged to settle their dispute, the original

library might still be intact. Fate, however,

decreed otherwise.

The 1906 earthquake that struck San

Francisco was followed by devastating

fires that swept over major portions of

the city. The Battery Street warehouse was

consumed by flames. The fire destroyed

approximately half of the Sutro Library,

including more than ninety percent of the

incunabula, thousands of bound volumes

The safe at the Sutro Library protected such treasures as the First Folio Shakespeare, illuminated manuscripts, and the first law book printed in the Americas.

3 0 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

of manuscripts, and tens of thousands of

other rare and unique imprints. It was an

immense loss. The other half of the library,

between 100,000 and 125,000 volumes

housed in the Montgomery Block, was

saved. The flames licked about the build-

ing but did not destroy it. The bitter irony

is that Sutro had long been preoccupied

with the threat of fire destroying his library.

Indeed, in presenting his 1895 proposal to

the Regents, he had described the protec-

tion that the land beneath Mt. Parnassus

afforded against this possibility as one of

its chief virtues. Others, too, had urged

Sutro to take all precaution to protect the

library against the threat of fire. Andrew

White, for example, had been very explicit

on the matter: “There is only one point,”

he told Sutro, “on which I am nervous

regarding it. I am more and more anxious

to hear that you are making haste to get it

into a fireproof building. It has become far

too precious to be risked much longer.”78

Although the obliteration of 100,000

volumes was a grievous loss to scholarship

and a terrible reminder of the fragility of

the library, it did not induce Sutro’s chil-

dren to settle their differences. Both Emma

Sutro Merritt and a majority of her siblings

continued to defend their positions, the

former determined to dispose of the library

(or what now remained of it) in a manner

consonant with her father’s wishes, the lat-

ter equally determined to sell it. “...unable,”

as the San Francisco Call reported in July,

1909, “to harmonize their views,” the fam-

ily and its lawyers were back in court.79 The

litigation dragged on for several more years,

but was finally settled in 1913. Whether the

other Sutro children had a change of heart,

or whether they had simply lost the case, it

was their sister who prevailed. Once Emma

Merritt’s position was vindicated, the ques-

tion for the family became: to whom should

the library be given? There were several

possibilities. The University of California

expressed interest in having the library, as

did the State Library in Sacramento, and

a group of Adolph Sutro’s friends revived

his oft-expressed wishes that the library be

presented to the city of San Francisco. The

question was soon answered. In May 1913,

it was announced that the heirs of the Sutro

Estate had donated the collection to the Cal-

ifornia State Library. Very few conditions

were attached to the gift. It was stipulated

that the collection must be called the Sutro

Library, that the books must bear the Sutro

bookplate, that exceptionally rare volumes

must not circulate outside the library, and—

in keeping with its founder’s wishes—that

the library must remain permanently in

San Francisco. It was also provided that the

books should be made available for public

use not later than January 1, 1917.

It is not entirely clear why the family, and

Emma Merritt in particular, for she played

the key role, chose to donate the collection

to the California State Library. The lobby-

ing of the State Librarian, James Gillis,

may well have been decisive.80 Like Sutro,

Gillis believed in the free public library as

an instrument of progress and enlighten-

ment and as a great social leveler. In any

event, the Board of Trustees of the State

Library accepted the donation and the sev-

eral conditions attached to it. Although the

California Legislature did not validate the

trustees’ action until 1915, when a bill was

passed authorizing the Sutro Branch in

San Francisco, all of the books and other

materials stored in the Montgomery Block

were moved in September 1913 to rented

quarters in Stanford University’s Lane

Medical Library, where the new branch

Adolph Sutro strolling in his gardens at Sutro Heights, San Francisco. Sutro Heights looks over Seal Rocks, the Cliff House, and the Pacific Ocean.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 3 1

would be temporarily located.

Thus ended fifteen years of uncertainty

about the disposition of Adolph Sutro’s

library, fifteen years of stubborn dispute

punctuated by the calamitous disaster of

1906. While the library had finally found

a home, it had not surmounted its difficul-

ties. On the contrary, these were about to

enter a new and in some respects more

upsetting phase. In 1913, when the State

Library trustees accepted the gift, the leg-

islature also passed a bill appropriating

monies to provide a building and opera-

tional funds for the Sutro Library. Obvi-

ously, the new branch library could not

function properly without a budget. Gov-

ernor Hiram Johnson, however, allowed

the bill to die by pocket veto. Unforseen at

the time, this defeat inaugurated a forty-

six year chain of subsequent defeats, dur-

ing which the Sutro Library was made to

live a hand-to-mouth existence, deprived

of resources and of legislative support, its

great holdings cast into a cramped base-

ment, neglected and forgotten by all but its

most dedicated supporters.

A brief chronology will serve to illus-

trate this penultimate chapter in its history.

As noted above, the Sutro Branch Library

had rented space in San Francisco’s Lane

Medical Library—part of Stanford Univer-

sity’s Medical School. Here it opened to the

public in January 1917 fulfilling one of the

conditions of the donation. These quarters,

however, were meant to be temporary, and

efforts continued on the part of some legis-

lators to get funding for the Sutro Library.

The need for funding was compounded

by the crowded conditions facing the Lane

Library. In 1923, a bill was introduced in the

legislature calling for the state to appropri-

ate money for the construction of the Sutro

Library as a branch of the State Library in

San Francisco’s Civic Center on a site to be

donated by the city.81 This effort, like those

preceding it, went down to defeat. The bill’s

failure, however, obviously did nothing to

alleviate the extreme crowding in the Lane

Library. Since the Sutro could not continue

to remain where it was and since the leg-

islature was not prepared to fund a new

building, the offer made by the Trustees

of the San Francisco Public Library of free

space in the main library was accepted, and

there the Sutro moved in August 1923. Con-

ditions in the San Francisco Public Library,

however, would soon prove no more favor-

able to the Sutro Branch than they had been

in the Lane Library.

As a branch of the State Library, the

Sutro received a small appropriation annu-

ally from the legislature. The amount was

negligible, some $4,000 to pay the salaries

of two librarians. Yet a faction in the state

senate begrudged even this sum of money

and in 1933 proposed, as a cost-saving mea-

sure, to eliminate the Sutro Branch and

return the library to the Sutro heirs. Their

proposal was crass in the extreme and a

group of prominent San Francisco citizens

quickly mobilized against it. Included in

this latter group was the noted printer John

Henry Nash. In a piece that he wrote for the

San Francisco News, Nash put his finger on

the Sutro Library’s underlying problem—it

had no building, no real infrastructure, and

no recognition. In Nash’s words, “Instead

of striving to save $4,000 a year, San Fran-

ciscans should be urging the erection of a

suitable building to house the Sutro Library,

where it might be used for research, or

pleasure, by thousands who are still in

ignorance of its existence. It has never been

given the proper publicity.”82 Although the

move to eliminate the Sutro Library went

nowhere, the Sutro’s defenders could not

turn the publicity that it generated to any

good effect. The library continued to lan-

guish in the San Francisco Public Library,

where, in the early 1940s, under increas-

ingly crowded conditions, much of it had

to be relegated to the basement. From

time to time, voices were raised in protest

against the orphaned state of the Sutro

Library and the damaging physical condi-

tions under which it was forced to exist. In

1940, for example, Paul Radin (who would

soon head up a WPA project to inventory

and compile a bibliography of the Sutro’s

Mexican pamphlets) complained that

“Time has sadly ravaged the Sutro collec-

tion. Dust...neglect, and the great catas-

trophe of 1906, have reduced it to a torso

of what it once was.”83 Operating on a

shoestring and largely hidden from public

view, how could the Sutro Library hope to

gain recognition and publicize its needs?

In 1946, more than thirty years after the

state accepted the donation of Adolph

Sutro’s library, it was still being written

(as it could perhaps still be written even

today) that “not many Californians know

that they...own a unique library—the Sutro

Branch of the California State Library.”84

The Sutro Library, however, could not

stay in the basement forever. By the late

1950s, a series of solutions, some conser-

vative, some radical, were being proposed

to address its problems. The library had

never enjoyed more than minimal support

in the halls of state government, and some

legislators again saw an opportunity to

pare down the costs of the State Library by

giving the Sutro away. The question resur-

The ownership of this Psalter, or book of Psalms, is attributed to King Charles II. Printed in 1672, it is bound in carved wood with a brass armorial clasp. A lyre, the date of 1056 B.C., and symbols of King David are carved on the front cover.

3 2 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

demonstrating to a wider audience how

exceptionally rich its holdings were. It was

now documented, for example, that a sig-

nificant portion of the Sutro’s enormous

collection of British pamphlets from the

seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth

centuries were not to be found in either

the Huntington or the William Andrew

Clark Libraries. To those in search of

such fugitive material, a visit to the Sutro

Library was unavoidable.86 A coalition of

interests—San Francisco legislators and

other elected officials, the California library

community, newspaper editors and col-

umnists, and citizens at large—began to

campaign for the library and to protest vig-

orously against its history of neglect by the

state. The distress that was felt over the irre-

sponsible mistreatment of a major cultural

asset was summed up in these words from

an editorial in the San Francisco News: “The

state has made shameful use of this trea-

sure house of knowledge.”87 The gathering

criticism and concern eventually reverber-

ated in the national press, thus expanding

the focus of attention.88 A final source of

support for the embattled library against

efforts to dismantle it or to move it out of

San Francisco came from within the Sutro

itself. Beginning in the mid-1950s, its staff

began to publicize the library to a much

wider audience by organizing traveling

exhibitions to sites in Northern California

and by writing articles about its holdings

for publication in national journals.89

The heightened desire to rescue the

Sutro Library, improve its conditions, and

place it in adequate quarters culminated in

an offer made in late 1958 by the Univer-

sity of San Francisco to house the Sutro on

the ground floor of its new Gleeson Library.

Under the terms of a twenty-year lease,

the Gleeson Library would make 14,000

square feet of space available to the Sutro—

far more than the amount of a renovated

area offered by the San Francisco Public

Library—for the nominal fee of $1.00 per

year. In all other respects, the Sutro Library

would stay unchanged, continuing to func-

tion as a branch of the California State

Library, observant of all of the conditions

of the 1913 agreement. This option was

clearly superior to any other that the Sutro

had before it. Short of having its own build-

ing (which would not occur until 1983), the

Sutro Library could not realistically hope

for a more generous offer. Yet, generous as

it may have been, the offer was not with-

out its critics. Opposition to the prospective

move came from two quarters: first, from

an assemblage of civic leaders, elected offi-

cials, and members of boards and commis-

sions, and second, from among members

of the Sutro family.

When the proposal to transfer the

Sutro to the Gleeson Library was first

announced, it was perceived by some to

violate the principle of church-state sepa-

ration. The University of San Francisco

was a Jesuit institution, and to these crit-

ics, the placement of a public library in

a private religious institution—whatever

the guarantees of free, public access—was

fundamentally wrong. The issue stirred

considerable controversy, and a significant

Printed in 1743, this pamphlet prohibiting speech is one of hundreds of English pamphlets purchased by Sutro during one of his many trips to the United Kingdom.

faced of how to break the 1913 agreement

with the Sutro heirs, so as to incorporate

the library into the holdings of the Univer-

sity of California, or into the San Francisco

Public Library, or to remove it to the state

capital, Sacramento. Although several vari-

ants of these ideas were floated in 1957–59,

and support for the U.C. Berkeley option

initially extended into the governor’s

office, more sensible thinking managed to

prevail. Proposals were also made to move

the Sutro Branch to other locations in San

Francisco, such as the quarters of the Uni-

versity of California Extension Service, or

back to the Lane Medical Library, since

Stanford University was moving its medi-

cal school to the Palo Alto campus. None

of these proposals, however, was practical

or enjoyed more than limited support. Still

another proposal, which very nearly came

to pass, was not to give the Sutro Library

to the San Francisco Public Library, but

rather, to keep it there as the Sutro Branch

in a larger, remodeled space. Funds for

this purpose were appropriated in early

1958 by the Ways and Means Committee

of the California State Assembly, raising

hopes that a solution to the Sutro’s prob-

lems might be at hand. As an article in

the San Francisco News put it: “The Sutro

Library in San Francisco, probably the

world’s most neglected collection of rare

manuscripts and early books, got some

hope for the future today.”85 These hopes,

however, were soon dashed, as the appro-

priation was quickly deleted by the Senate

Finance Committee.

To the dismay and astonishment of

many, the debate over what to do with the

Sutro dragged on, the library falling victim

to political posturing and infighting. In

the 1959 legislative session, new proposals

were made to close the doors of the Sutro,

strike its funding from the state budget,

and give it to the University of California.

Nevertheless, the wearying struggle over

the library had brought renewed attention

to it, and in the end, this attention saved

it by solidifying its base of support and by

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 3 3

protest against the transfer was expressed

on these grounds.90 Furthermore, a por-

tion of the community, led by the San Fran-

cisco Public Library Commission, opposed

the move on more general grounds as

well, asserting that given the history and

purposes of the Sutro Library, it was more

appropriate that it remain in a public loca-

tion. In light of the sharp divisions over

the issue, California Governor Edmund G.

Brown appointed a committee to analyze

the University of San Francisco’s offer.

After conducting a brief study, the com-

mittee unanimously recommended that

the offer be accepted. Governor Brown

agreed with the recommendation, and the

announcement was soon made (in May

1959) that the state would lease space in

the Gleeson Library for the Sutro Branch.

Although opposition continued to be

expressed, it gradually died down, and

in early January 1960, the San Francisco

Public Library Commission withdrew its

objection and agreed to the transfer. At

this juncture, an opéra bouffe aspect was

injected into the affair when two of Adolf

Sutro’s granddaughters, Alberta Morbio

Pruett and Marguerite Morbio de Mailly,

sought a legal injunction to block the

move, alleging that the original donors

expected the Sutro Library to be housed in

a nonsectarian environment, and further

threatening that, if the library move to the

University of San Francisco went through,

they would sue to repossess the library in

its entirety.91 The granddaughters’ case did

not materialize. In early 1960, the Sutro

Library was transferred to new quarters in

the Gleeson Library. At long last, it could

move forward.

final tHoUGHts

Having considered the history of the Sutro

Library from its beginnings down to 1960,

one returns to the original question—how

is it that the man who conceived and assem-

bled a library of such remarkable propor-

tions has earned so little recognition for

his efforts as a collector? The answer is tied

(Above) The new rare book vault on the sixth floor has finally given Adolph Sutro’s magnificent collection proper shelving. The vault is equipped with humidity and temperature control and stout security.

(Below) A high-tech reference desk on the fifth floor welcomes Sutro patrons. Shown behind the desk is the high security rare materials reading room.

3 4 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

San Francisco Chronicle (September 15, 1895). For testimonies appearing outside of San Francisco, see “A Real Benefac-tor,” The Augusta Chronicle (September 16, 1885), and “San Francisco...Adolph Sutro’s Great Library—Its Riches and His Methods,” The Daily Tribune [Salt Lake City] (November 29, 1885).

3 Carl Cannon, American Book Collectors and

Collecting from Colonial Times to the Present. (New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1941 ), and Donald C. Dickinson, Diction-

ary of American Book Collectors. (New York & Westport: Greenwood Press, 1986). A third principal source that omits any mention of Sutro is Nicholas A. Basbanes’ book, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bib-

liomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995), which contains considerable mate-rial about the history and folklore of book collecting and private libraries in America during their so-called “golden age.”

4 Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, The Book in

America: A History of the Making, the

Selling, and the Collecting of Books in the

United States. In Collaboration with Ruth Shepard Granniss and Lawrence Wroth. (New York: R.R. Bowker and Company, 1939), p. 346.

5 Granniss wrote and compiled Part III, entitled “American Book Collecting and the Growth of Libraries.” Although, as mentioned above, the book was designed to fill out the historical record, it actually had less to say about Sutro and his library than did a 1915 study by George Watson Cole, Book-Collectors as Benefactors of Pub-

lic Libraries. [reprinted for private distri-bution from papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Volume IX, Nos 3–4] (Chicago: [University of Chicago Press], 1915).

6 Both Moss and Perkins were exception-ally capable. Moss, who served as Sutro’s chief librarian for some ten years, was an English bookbinder, reputedly trained by Francis Bedford, as well as a scholar with a broad knowledge of languages. Per-kins, a former head librarian of the San Francisco Free Public Library, worked for Sutro (under the supervision of Moss) for several years in the early 1890s, catalog-

to a number of factors. Certainly, the fire

that in 1906 reduced half of Sutro’s library

to ashes played a role. Gone in a few cruel

hours were the books and manuscripts that

had placed it at the pinnacle of collections

in this country, of both incunabula and

sixteenth-century European imprints. Yet

this loss, colossal as it was, hardly accounts

for Adolf Sutro’s lack of recognition. First, it

happened after he had assembled the library

and thus could not negate his collecting

achievements. Second, even after the fire,

the Sutro remained—both in size and qual-

ity—one of the finest private libraries in the

country, containing areas of strength, such

as its Mexicana and its pamphlets relating

to the political, economic, and religious his-

tory of Great Britain, that set it apart from

other collections. Ultimately, the major

explanation for Sutro’s obscurity as a book

collector lay in his own indecisiveness and

lack of action. What separated Adolf Sutro

from Huntington, Morgan, Newberry,

and others, was his failure to either carry

through with his plans to construct a build-

ing for his library and leave an endowment

for its future operations, or to provide the

means and instructions by which to accom-

plish these purposes after his death. That

failure led directly to the sad train of events

that subsequently befell the library. To

take such action was imperative for Sutro,

because unlike a number of other collec-

tors, he could not count on his children

(other than his eldest daughter) to remain

faithful to his vision. The tragedy is that

Sutro had been motivated by high ideals

and a deep sense of civic purpose. For him,

libraries were a sublime creation, touch-

stones of progress and of cultural and intel-

lectual enlightenment. The donation of the

Sutro Library in 1913 to the California State

Library was made out of respect for Sutro’s

wishes and to fulfill his earlier vision for the

library. For nearly half a century, the state’s

failure to support the Sutro Library sub-

verted this intention. What is more, the dis-

use and neglect into which the library fell

left its mark on Adolf Sutro’s reputation as

a book collector. Largely lost in the wreck-

age of the post-1913 years were the record

and the memory of the library that he had

planned and assembled. Equally lost (to the

extent that it had ever existed) was the rec-

ognition of Sutro’s importance within the

ranks of American book collectors and of

his stature, in Richard Dillon’s phrase, as

“San Francisco’s pioneer bookman.”92

ENDNOTES

* Field research for this essay was supported by

a grant from the University of New Mexico

Research Allocations Committee, which the

author gratefully acknowledges. Thanks are also

due to W. Michael Mathes, Honorary Curator

of Mexicana in the Sutro Library, for initially

encouraging research on this topic; to Gary F.

Kurutz, Curator of Special Collections, Califor-

nia State Library, Howard Karno, of Howard

Karno Books, Valley Center, California, and

Donald C. Farren, Scholar in Residence in the

Folger Shakespeare Library, for their insights

and advice; to Clyde Janes, retired Head Librar-

ian of the Sutro Branch Library, for facilitating

my use of documents pertaining to Adolf Sutro

and his library; and to the staff of the Bancroft

Library and of the California Historical Society

for similar assistance.

1 On the question of the size of Sutro’s library, see Richard H. Dillon, “The Sutro Library,” News Notes of California Libraries, 51, No. 2 (April 1956): 338-352. While there is no full-scale history of the Sutro Library (which has functioned since 1917 as a branch of the California State Library), the story of its formation and subsequent travails has been recounted in various articles and pamphlets. In addition to the aforementioned piece by Dillon (who served as Sutro Librarian from 1953 until 1980), see his booklet, The Anatomy of

a Library [San Francisco: Sutro Library, 1957], and Peter Thomas Conmy, “The Sutro Library: Origin, Nature and Status,” California Librarian 20, No. 2 (April 1959): 91-95 & 129.

2 See, for example, “Notes on the Sutro Library,” Overland Monthly (June 1885), n.p.; “Rare Old Works; An Appreciative Sketch of the Sutro Library,” San Fran-

cisco Daily Report (Dec. 31, 1886), n.p.; and ‘The Colleges and the Big Library,”

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 3 5

ing pamphlets located in the Montgom-ery Block building. Prior to coming to San Francisco, he had held important positions within the fledgling American library profession. On Moss, see Richard Dillon, “Adolph Sutro Finds a Librarian,” The Journal of Library History 2 (1967): 225–234, and for further details on Per-kins, see Martin J. Manning, “Perkins, Frederic Beecher,” in American National

Biography, Vol. 17: 341–343.

7 For this passage and the information preceding it, see O’Day’s article, “Varied Types: 347—Robert E. Cowan,” in Town

Talk: The Pacific and Bay Cities Weekly 30, No. 1307 (Sept. 8, 1917): 5 & 17.

8 Even if he had been so motivated, Sutro would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to compete with Folger, Mor-gan, Huntington, et al., because his per-sonal wealth was much less than theirs.

9 M. J. Ferguson, The Sutro Branch of the

California State Library. [Sacramento: Cal-ifornia State Library (?), n.d.] This slim pamphlet by Ferguson carries no pub-lication date, but was probably written around 1920.

10 For these and related details about Sutro’s life and travels in the 1870s–1880s, see Robert E. Stewart, Jr. and Mary Frances Stewart, Adolph Sutro: A Biography. (Berke-ley: Howell-North, 1962): pp. 41–179. This is the only full-length biography of Sutro.

11 As quoted in Conmy, pp. 93–94.

12 This figure is given by Dillon in “The Sutro Library,” p. 338.

13 Among the materials in the Sutro Branch Library are receipts and correspondence pertaining to Adolph Sutro’s book pur-chases during this and later periods. For records documenting his 1883 Lon-don purchases, see Sutro Papers, Sutro Branch Library, Drawers 5 (Folder 2), 6 (Folder 1), 7 (Folders 1&2), and 9 (Folder 1). For simplicity’s sake, the Sutro Branch Library will be cited as “SBL.”

14 Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 5, Folder 2. For more on the Sunderland sale, see p. 12.

15 Ibid.

16 The price for this batch was £3.1 0. Ibid.

17 Stewart, Adolph Sutro, p. 178

18 Other German booksellers from whom he bought included Ludwig Rosenthal, Carl Forster, J. Hess, and E. Hofstätder. Although Sutro travelled in 1883 (and after) to various European book centers—Basel, Antwerp, Paris, Madrid—Germany, after London, was his second major theatre of operations. Correspondence and receipts pertaining to Sutro’s purchases from Ger-man booksellers (including Mayer) is con-tained in the Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 5, Folders 2, 3, and 4; Drawer 6, Folder 1 ; and Drawer 9, Folder I.

19 A complete tabulation of Mayer’s pur-chases, his month-by-month expenditures for books between May 1884 and October 1886, is found in the Sutro Library. See “Journal, Library, A. Sutro,” Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 32, Folder I. (This is the account book for the London operation and includes all of its outlays.) Whether still in London or back in Munich, Mayer apparently did a limited amount of work during the winding-down period, since his salary for the entire six months was only £90.

20 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, June 9, 1884. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 5, Folder 5.

21 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, Dec. 2, 1884, Ibid.

22 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, Jan. 23, 1885, Ibid.

23 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, May 19, 1885, Ibid.

24 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, July 7, 1885, Ibid.

25 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, May 19, 1885. Ibid.

26 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, July 7, 1885, Ibid.

27 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, Oct. 5, 1885, Ibid.

28 See the account book cited in note 20 above. Each monthly entry records this sum as the allotment for books. Although the figure of $2,000 has often been cited, this seems incorrect, since at this time a pound sterling was equal to $5.00.

29 As it happened, bulk purchases were unavoidable, as very few books were sold individually. Such treatment was given

only to books of exceptional value or interest. Instead, almost all of the books disposed of at auctions were sold by lot, tied in bundles of 25 each, without sepa-rate bibliographic description. These were the conditions that Mayer (or any purchaser or agent) faced. To circumvent the problem of buying what he did not want, Mayer made every effort to inspect lots in advance. For a description of the sale-by-lot system, see Henry R. Wagner, Sixty Years of Book Collecting. Los Angeles, The Zamorano Club, 1952.

30 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, Oct. 28, 1884. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 5, Folder 5.

31 Carl F. Mayer to Adolf Sutro, Dec. 2, 1884. Ibid. As it turned out, the Mazarin Bible fetched £3,900, “the highest price at any time paid for a book,” Mayer reported two weeks later to Sutro.

32 The essay forms chapter 17 of Bancroft’s autobiographical work, Retrospection,

Political and Personal. (New York: The Bancroft Company, 1913). See pp. 314–315.

33 Robert Warner to Adolf Sutro, n.d., Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 7, Folder 4.

34 Robert Warner to Adolf Sutro, Nov. 4, 1884. Sutro Papers, SBL, Ibid.

35 For these and other details about the col-lection, see “Leman’s Old Plays ... ,” San

Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 1887.

36 Charles C. Soule to Adolf Sutro, July 11, 1889. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 5, Folder I.

37 For an excellent account of the formation and contents of the Woodward Library, see Gary F. Kurutz, “A Library of Librar-ies: The Formation of the Adolph Sutro Collection and the Library of Woodward’s Gardens,” California State Library Founda-

tion Bulletin, No. 57 (October 1996): 9-14.

38 These notes by Moss are unsigned, but are clearly written in his hand. They are also undated, but because of details that they contain regarding Sutro’s choice of a site for his library, must have been composed around the mid-1890s. Further evidence for this date is found in the fact that Moss gives the number of volumes in the library as 200,000, a figure which likely could not have been reached before this time.

3 6 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 22, Folder 1.

39 Ibid.

40 Richard Dillon, “Adolph Sutro Finds a Librarian,” The Journal of Library History

2 (1967): 227.

41 From “Americana: Early Collectors, Bib-liographers and Bookdealers; Libraries and Research Centers,” a chapter in Vol. I of Justin Winsor’s Aboriginal America, as reproduced in Review of National Lit-

eratures [ed. Anne Paolucci and Henry Paolucci], Vo119 (1995): 54.

42 Dillon, “Sutro Finds a Librarian,” p. 227.

43 This number is included in an undated tabulation (probably done by Robert War-ner), found among Mayer’s letters to Sutro. See Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 9, Folder I.

44 From Richard H. Dillon, “The Sutro Library,” News Notes of California Libraries, 51, No.2 (Apri11956): 342.

45 Ibid.

46 For more on this part of the Sutro Library and on Sutro’s book-buying ventures in Mexico, see W. Michael Mathes, “A Biblio-phile’s Dream: Adolph Sutro in Mexico,” Quarterly News Letter: The Book Club of

California, Vol. XLV, No. 3 (Summer 1980): 73-75, and Richard H. Dillon, “Sutro Library’s Resources in Latin Americana,” Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 45, No.2 (May 1965): 267–274.

47 The four folios and the Halliwell-Phillips Collection of Shakespeare Stratford docu-ments.

48 Banks was president of the Royal Society and had sailed with Captain Cook. The 100,000 pages of material (chiefly manu-scripts) in his collection document and mirror the scientific spirit and achieve-ments of his time.

49 An invoice in the Sutro Library indicates that he paid £200 for them. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 8, Folder I. Shapira had taken his own life in March 1884, follow-ing the revelation that he had tried to sell a forged “manuscript of Deuteronomy” to the British Museum. This was not the first fraudulent sale for which Shapira had been the agent. For a brief note on his role in these affairs, see “Shapira

Fragments,” in the Encyclopedia Judaica, Ed. Cecil Roth & Geoffrey Wigoder, Vol. 14: 1301-1302.

50 “The Sutro Library,” in the Pacific Church-man, April 1, 1885, from the Sutro papers, SBL, Drawer 32, Folder 2.

51 O’Day, Town Talk, p. 5.

52 It is sometimes thought that Sutro’s Span-ish “agents” led him to believe that they were uncovering heretofore unknown doc-uments relating to the early Spanish colo-nization and evangelization of present-day California. On this point, see, e.g., Don-ald C. Cutter’s preface to his reedition of George B. Griffin’s 1891 compilation, Doc-

uments from the Sutro Collection. Donald C. Cutter, The California Coast: A Bilingual

Edition of Documents from the Sutro Collec-

tion....(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969): vii–xix. Peralta, however, was very direct with Sutro, informing him: “Only I must tell candidly, I believe that you came too late to find anything new. In Mexico as well as in San Francisco no document has been spared examination, copy and even printing. The infatigable Hubert Howe Bancroft has left you and everybody else quite behind in Californian documents and historical knowledge. He has copies of all documents of interest in the very Archives of the Missions on Cali-fornia, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, etc. etc.” Manuel Peralta to Adolf Sutro, March 2, 1884. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 5, Folder 5.

53 Moss’ monthly salary was $125 and Per-kins’ $100. The principal bookbinder, Henry Marsden, was paid $18 per week; the book-sewers earned less, around $1.45 per day. See “Sutro Library Receipts,” Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 22, Folder 3.

54 George Moss to Adolph Sutro, June 20, 1893. Bancroft Library, Sutro, A.H.J., Papers & Correspondence, Box 8, George Moss Folder.

55 White wrote a quite complete description of the library to the editor of the Christian

Advocate, J. M. Buckley, who printed it in the paper in 1892. Sutro included parts of White’s account in a pamphlet that he published in 1895, when he proposed a site for the library to the Regents of the

University of California. See Adolph Sutro

‘s Letter to the Regents of the University of

California and to the Committee of Affili-

ated Colleges on the Selection of a Site for the

Affiliated Colleges. (San Francisco: 1895): pp. 4–5.

56 Andrew White to Adolph Sutro, June 21, 1892. Bancroft Library, Sutro, A.H. J., Papers & Correspondence, Box 19, Andrew D. White Folder.

57 Andrew D. White to Adolph Sutro, July 29, 1893. Ibid.

58 See “Visitor’s Register: Sutro Library 1886–1994,” Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 35. Moreover, according to Perkins, a number of these visitors had specialized knowledge of libraries and were thus able to appreciate the remarkable strengths of the Sutro. “This library, imperfect as it is, has excited the astonishment of every book expert who has examined it.” See Bancroft Library, Sutro, A.H.J ., Papers & Correspondence, Box 9: Perkins, Frederic Beecher Folder.

59 Mary S. Barnes to George Moss, Sept. 10, 1895. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 10, Folder 7.

60 See, e.g., letter from P. W. Treat (private secretary to Sutro) to George Warner, a Minneapolis collector, in which Treat wrote: “Replying to yours of 6th we are not purchasing anything for the Sutro Library at present, but in the near future we would be pleased to hear from you again.” P. W. Treat to Warner, January 10, 1898. Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 33, Folder 2.

61 To scholars later researching this period in the library’s history, Moss’ fate was apparently something of a mystery. (See Richard Dillon, “Adolph Sutro Finds a Librarian,” The Journal of Library History, Vol. 2 [1967]: 225-234.) Yet it is clear from a letter that Emma Merritt wrote to her sister Katie that Moss had indeed passed away: “In regard to the library there is no complete catalog. Poor Mr. Moss...who was for so many years the Librarian, died on the 25th of March, after a lingering ill-ness of nearly two years. Practically, there has been nobody in the library for about ten months....” Emma Merritt to Mrs.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 3 7

Moritz Nussbaum, n.d. [but probably writ-ten in early April 1898]. Bancroft Library, Sutro, A.H.J. Papers & Correspondence, Box 41: Sutro Estate; Correspondence, Legal Documents, 1898–1915.

62 Ibid.

63 Among Sutro’s artifacts were Egyptian mummies and a great many stuffed ani-mals and birds.

64 See “At Sutro Heights,” Pacific Rural Press (San Francisco), May 8, 1886.

65 Ibid.

66 Sutro went on to say, “...and here, among these groves and gardens, by the side of the great Pacific, I shall place my books.” From remarks he addressed to a group of editorial writers in 1885, as quoted in “A Real Benefactor,” The Augusta Chronicle, September 16, 1885, p. 8.

67 From an article on the proposed library published in the San Francisco Call on June 15, 1893, as paraphrased in Fergu-son, Sutro Branch, p. 3.

68 See note 56 above.

69 W. C. Little quoting Adolf Sutro, as reported in “The Colleges and the Big Library,” San Francisco Chronicle, Septem-ber 15, 1895.

70 Mention of such a trust and of Sutro’s assurances to the Regents was reported in “Sutro’s College Site is Settled. Approval of the Deed of Gift...,” San Francisco

Chronicle, October 9, 1895.

71 Ibid.

72 There is also some indication that Sutro may actually have decided to deed the library itself to the University. See Stewart & Stewart, Adolf Sutro, 207–208.

73 As evidence that Sutro was serious about leaving an endowment for the library, Moss cites Sutro’s success in getting an amendment passed to the state constitu-tion that exempted public libraries from taxation. According to Moss, Sutro had feared that the endowment might other-wise be eaten up in taxes. Mention of this initiative of Sutro’s is made in the surviv-ing fragments of a biographical sketch about him,which, while lacking a specific date and author, was apparently written

by Moss, as it bears notes and corrections in his handwriting. See Sutro Papers, SBL, Drawer 31, Folder 2. Furthermore, Sutro expected that the endowment, “to be used in the maintenance of the library and for the acquisition of additional books,” would yield a minimum income of $2,000 per month. See Dillon, “The Sutro Library,” p. 340.

74 The question was posed, for example, in an article published in the San Francisco

Chronicle just a day after Sutro’s death, as quoted in Conmy, “The Sutro Library,” p. 92.

75 See “Heirs Seek to Sell the Sutro Library,” The San Francisco Call, August 23, 1900, p. 11.

76 Ibid.

77 O’Day, Town Talk, p. 5.

78 Andrew White to Adolf Sutro, June 21, 1892. Bancroft Library, Sutro, A.H.J. Papers & Correspondence, Box 19: Andrew D. White Folder.

79 See “Sutro’s Heirs Are in Dispute over Library,” The San Francisco Call, July 29, 1909, p. 5.

80 See Conmy, “The Sutro Library,” p. 94.

81 The bill was introduced by Assemblyman Albert Rosenshine. See San Francisco

Chronicle, February 2, 1923.

82 John Henry Nash, “Save the Sutro Library!,” The San Francisco News, March 14, 1933.

83 Paul Radin, “The Sutro Library,” Women’s

City Club Magazine of San Francisco 14, No.6 (July 1940): p. 15.

84 William Parker, “Interesting Volume in Sutro Branch, Calif. State Library,” The

Western Journal of Education (September 1946): 15.

85 See “Sutro Library Gets Hope for Proper Home: Assembly Unit OK’s $101,198,” The San Francisco News, February 17, 1958.

86 This and other unique strengths of the Sutro Library were publicized in a report (the so-called “Henderson Report”) issued in 1957 by a special state commit-tee formed to evaluate the Sutro Library and its needs.

87 See “Buried Treasure,” The San Francisco

News, September 20, 1957.

88 See, e.g., “Sutro Library Issue Arouses California,” in The Christian Science Moni-

tor, May 20, 1959.

89 The principal person driving this public-ity campaign was Richard Dillon, who had become the Head of the Sutro Branch in 1953.

90 See, e.g., “Sutro Book Shift to USF Opposed,” San Francisco Examiner, May 20, 1959, Sec. I, p. 9.

91 “San Francisco: Literary Orphan,” San

Francisco Chronicle [This World section], January 24, 1960.

92 Richard Dillon, “Adolph Sutro’s Bib-liographic Legacy,” in Seven Pioneer San

Francisco Libraries (San Francisco: Rox-burghe Club of San Francisco, 1958): p. 29.

3 8 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

hen Curator of Special

Collections Emeritus Gary

Kurutz told me recently that

moving the Sutro Library to its new loca-

tion on the San Francisco State campus

was about to happen, I began to reflect on

my experience with this wonderful library

and its holdings. Shortly after arriving in

1980 to take the post of state librarian of

California, I learned that the good fathers

at the University of San Francisco (USF)

were evicting the Sutro. The library had

been in the basement of the Gleeson

Library at a dollar a year for some time.

Gary, Chief of State Library Services

Sheila Thornton, and I made our way to

USF on several occasions to discuss the

State Librarian Gary E. Strong hosted a gala celebration of the new Sutro Library building in 1983. The front of the invitation depicts the 480 Winston Drive, San Francisco facility that housed the Sutro from 1982 to 2012.

Sutro Library By Gary E. Strong

Reflections�on�the�

EDITOR’S NOTE

Gary E. Strong is University Librarian, UCLA Library. Mr. Strong is the founder of the Cali-

fornia State Library Foundation and served as State Librarian of California (1980–1994)

during the relocation of the Sutro Library from the University of San Francisco to 480 Winston

Drive on the North Campus of San Francisco State University.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 3 9

possible extension of their good graces

until we could find a suitable home, real-

izing that we had to remain in the City

and County of San Francisco. On one of

those first trips, we were exposed to hep-

atitis and all had to get shots as a result.

I was actually in Wisconsin at a meeting

of state librarians where they chased me

down, and colleagues there got me to a

clinic for the inoculation. Another time, I

would stay on for other meetings and was

mugged outside of my hotel. But that is

another story all together.

These negotiations were to continue

until we had agreement for the library

to remain in place, but at a much higher

rent, until such time we could find a suit-

able location. Gary and I set about look-

ing at a variety of options, including the

Masonic Temple on Van Ness Street,

which would have been great. But, alas, it

was way out of our reach to renovate let

alone purchase. Remember Proposition 13

was newly passed.

One day at lunch, I overheard the gath-

ering at the table next to me speculating

on the options for the temporary buildings

behind the State Capitol, which had been

temporary housing for the legislature dur-

ing the renovation of that historic building.

It took me no time at all to begin making

calls on return from lunch. To make the

story much shorter, an agreement was

struck with the legislative leadership to

acquire the buildings for the Sutro Library.

So I began to try to find a place to put

them. San Francisco State University

President Paul Romberg, came to the res-

cue, and together we pushed a proposal

through the California State University

Board of Trustees and settled on an agree-

ment that would allow the temporary

buildings to move to the north part of the

San Francisco State University campus

for one dollar a year. We were in business.

Now to figure out how to marry the two

separate temporary buildings together

into one structure and how to actually dis-

mantle and move them to San Francisco.

It only took thirty-six truckloads to fin-

ish the job, and the buildings were recon-

structed with the need to only buy a new

front entrance and a couple of toilet fix-

tures. Principal Librarian Cy Silver from

the library consulting staff oversaw the

construction with folks from General Ser-

vices. Sheila, Gary and their crew planned

the move which went smoothly. Some new

treasures were uncovered and logged. And

we were ready to open for business with

compact shelving for the bulk of the origi-

nal Sutro collections and open shelving

and user space for the high use collections

of local history and genealogy—even a rare

book room.

The dedication was a stellar event. Var-

tan Gregorian, then president of the New

York Public Library and formerly at San

Francisco State was keynote speaker, for-

mer State Librarian of California Ethel

Crockett, and a host of legislative mem-

bers and staff were on hand to celebrate

the opening. During the private brunch

at the Cliff House, I recall looking out the

window toward the site of the Sutro Baths

wondering what Adolph himself would

have thought.

We would draw from the Sutro collec-

tions many times over for exhibitions and

content for the Bulletin, always with Gary

Kurutz’s fine writing. Bringing the trea-

sures of the Sutro Library to the attention

of the public and those of the California

State Library has always been one of my

personal pleasures. Californians can be

very proud of the fact that these two col-

lections today compose a tremendous

resource for public scholars and histori-

ans. During the remainder of my time

as state librarian, I would yearly invest

in building the extensive collection of

local history and genealogy, making this a

Mecca for local historians and those inter-

ested in their family roots.

It is such a pleasure to see the Sutro

Library ready to take on new clothes and

continue to welcome Californians to sam-

ple its riches.

Shortly after arriving in 1980

to take the post of state librarian

of California, I learned that the

good fathers at the University

of San Francisco (USF) were

evicting the Sutro.

4 0 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

n 1984, I gave a talk to the

Zamorano Club in Los Ange-

les detailing the many moves

and homes of the Sutro Library over the

twentieth century. The title of my talk was

“From Pillar to Post: The Peregrinations of

the Sutro Library, 1913–1983.” Much of the

same information concerning the differ-

ent locations is contained in Russ David-

son’s and Gary E. Strong’s fine articles. It

seemed appropriate, however, to describe

the last and what we hope is the final jour-

ney of the Sutro Library.

Overlooking beautiful Lake Merced

and the Pacific Ocean on 480 Winston

Drive in southwest San Francisco, the

Sutro Library from 1982 to July 2012 was

located in a 20,000 square-foot modular

building originally designed to house the

Legislative Chambers during the restora-

tion of the State Capitol Building. From

the beginning, State Library administra-

tive staff knew that it was not a perfect

solution but it did provide a home in a

state-owned building on state-owned real

estate. No longer did the Sutro depend on

the decision making of a landlord. How-

ever, the state architects who reconfigured

the structure to meet the Sutro’s needs

warned that the building’s air-condition-

ing system and roof would eventually need

to be replaced. Miraculously, it survived

the October 17, 1989, Loma Prieta Earth-

quake beautifully. When the earth shook

at 5:04 in the late afternoon, a few ceiling

tiles fell down, a small number of books

from some of the top shelves hit the floor,

and drawers of microfilm cabinets opened.

Staff remaining in the building just after

it closed, of course, rightly quailed in fear

and crouched under tables. The seismic

event devastated the neighboring J. Paul

Leonard Library of San Francisco State

University twisting metal stacks and hurl-

ing tens of thousands of books to the floor.

As the years passed, it also became

clear that the Sutro Library would have

to expand its facility to accommodate col-

lection growth in addition to replacing

its heating and air-conditioning system,

installing a new roof, and handling routine

repairs. When Adolph Sutro contemplated

building a library on his property overlook-

ing the Pacific Ocean, experts warned him

that the humid ocean air would harm his

collection. Ironically, the Winston Drive

facility overlooked the ocean, and fog and

drizzle frequently engulfed the area. The

HVAC system strained and groaned and

could not keep up. Early on, a mold out-

break attacked the collection, and staff

scrambled to rectify the problem and deal

with several volumes that required eradi-

cation of the dreaded fungi. In response,

contractors installed portable dehumidi-

fiers and fans that battled twenty-four

hours a day to keep the air dry. Despite

these problems, vigilant staff cheerfully

monitored conditions and kept Sutro’s

legacy mold and pest free. Later a new roof

was added and the building restuccoed to

further protect the collections. Workers

also installed screens and other devices

to shield the library against rodents and

other critters that lurked about in the

Stonestown neighborhood.

There remained one other unsatisfac-

tory element: the lack of proper storage for

the majority of the rare books. The former

Senate Chambers were not large enough

to house the non-circulating collection

The Sutro Library’s Long Journey Is Over

By Gary F. Kurutz

EDITOR’S NOTE

Mr. Kurutz is executive director of the Foundation and curator emeritus of special collections. He

was involved in the previous move of the Sutro Library in 1982 and 1983.

Artist's 1982 rendering of the Sutro Library's location at 480 Winston Drive

in southwestern San Francisco.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 4 1

on conventional metal library shelves.

When the moving company delivered the

books to the new location, tens of thou-

sands of volumes remained packed away

in cartons. Funding in post Proposition-13

days remained tight, but the State Library

secured an appropriation to install com-

pact shelving units in what came to be

called the “back stacks.” Huge concrete

piers were poured, tracks for the shelv-

ing bases installed, and eleven-foot high

rolling shelving units installed. Compact

shelving has the advantage of eliminat-

ing the need for aisles and thus saving

much space. The perimeter walls of the

back stacks supported oversize shelves.

Finally, the books which included hun-

dreds of folio and elephant folio-sized

volumes were carefully put in place. The

weight supported by the units was tremen-

dous. It was an awesome sight for visitors

to be shown the back stacks. Despite the

size of the room and its rows of leviathan

stacks, this proved to be a less than satis-

factory solution. Why? It was still not large

enough to adequately shelve all the books.

Many of the fragile volumes had to be

double and even triple-shelved. Scaling a

ladder to try and find a small octavo-sized

volume squeezed behind two-rows of

books proved to be dangerous not only for

the books but also for the librarians.

When historian and librarian Dr. Kevin

Starr of San Francisco became the State

Librarian of California in 1993, he natu-

rally visited the State Library’s San Fran-

cisco branch. Immediately, Dr. Starr

expressed dissatisfaction with the Winston

Drive facility. This reconfigured modular

building, he believed, was not suitable for

the world-famous rare book and manu-

script collection of Adolph Sutro. Some-

thing had to be done. On June 28, 1995, he

wrote: “Adolph Sutro’s vision of a proper

home for the Sutro Library has for nearly

a century been a goal of his heirs and

every State Librarian.” Library consultant

Cy Silver was commissioned to develop a

general building program addressing the

Sutro’s need for adequate storage, shelv-

ing, and public programs. Clearly the Win-

ston Drive facility needed to be expanded

or a new site developed.

Timing is always crucial. The Sutro’s

Library’s property owner, San Francisco

State University, needed to seismically

secure its J. Paul Leonard Library follow-

ing the 1989 earthquake. Furthermore, the

university library was in desperate need of

expansion room not only for bound vol-

umes but also to accommodate new media

and computer stations. Plus, its student

body was growing. Working with Deputy

State Librarian Cameron Robertson, Gen-

eral Counsel Paul Smith, and Cy Silver,

Dr. Starr approached San Francisco State

University and met with University Presi-

dent Dr. Robert Corrigan. Starr and Cor-

rigan agreed to join forces in seeking state

funding for a joint-use facility. A deal was

struck, and in 2002 a lease revenue bond

approved by the governor and state legisla-

ture funded the renovation and expansion

of the Leonard Library.

Given the Sutro Library’s history of hav-

ing to move every twenty or so years, the

State Library, with the blessings of the

California State Department of Finance,

required a permanent solution. To enter

into a landlord-lessee relationship with the

university was unacceptable. The Sutro

Library Branch would, therefore, become

a part owner of the building. The State of

California allocated a percentage of the

funding for the renovation and expansion

of the facility to include 30,000 square

feet for the Sutro Library operation. It

would be a permanent allocation of space.

By so doing, the university could not, in

say twenty-five years, terminate the agree-

ment. The Department of Finance has

been steadfast in assuring the State Library

that this represented a permanent home

for this once wandering library. Moreover,

without the inclusion of the Sutro Library,

the university would not have received the

funding for the project.

Beginning in the new millennium, State

Library staff met with library staff from

the university led by University Librar-

ian Debbie Masters and members of the

university’s Capitol Planning Department.

It represented an exciting time to plan a

joint-use facility and to interact with uni-

versity librarians. Earlier, San Jose State

University and the San Jose Public Library

had entered into a joint-use agreement,

and since 2003 that relationship has been

a success. Bringing the remarkable Sutro

collection into the center of campus rep-

resented a happy prospect. Originally,

the plan called for the Sutro Library to

be located on the first floor and then the

fourth floor of the new facility. The latter

option would have placed it on the same

floor as the university’s own special col-

lections, the Frank V. de Bellis Rare Book

Collection, and also the San Francisco

Labor Archives and Research center. The

plan provided space for an exhibit gallery

where both the university and Sutro could

create displays.

However, as has been the history of the

Sutro Library, nothing is simple. As time

lapsed in the planning phase, costs esca-

lated exceeding the State’s allocation. The

demand for concrete and steel in China,

India, and elsewhere impacted the bud-

get. The State augmented funding but not

enough to cover everything that both staffs

wanted. Consequently, such standard

appointments as finished ceilings had to

be scaled back and the project architect ter-

minated. A new firm HMC Architects was

brought in to undertake what in the build-

ing trade is known as a “design build facil-

ity.” In this process, the same firm handles

the design and construction.

Planning meeting after planning meet-

ing was held, and staff of both institu-

tions poured over floor plans, furniture

and equipment configurations, and stack

layouts. Sutro Library staff diligently mea-

sured the collections inch by inch and

microfilm cabinets drawer by drawer. Part

of the facility called for the addition on the

west side of the Leonard Library of a new

4 2 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

structure to house an automated library

retrieval system (LRS). Several university

libraries have used this futuristic system

to densely store non-rare materials into

bins. Each volume would be bar-coded,

and a robot-like device would then glide

down tracks from the command post and

retrieve the correct bin. The bin would

then return to the command post, and a

technician would open the bin and retrieve

the requested volume. As a part owner of

the facility, the Sutro has received several

of these bins, which will be used to store

bound newspapers and microforms made

obsolete by online information services.

Engineers reviewed the load-bearing

capacity of the Leonard Library and sur-

prisingly determined that the section of the

fourth floor set aside for the Sutro would

not work. The plan called for its heavy book

stacks to be placed over the roof of the old

facility. Simply put, loaded book stacks

would be too heavy, and a new location in

the renovated facility had to be found. Dar-

lene Tong, Head of Information, Research

and Instructional Services of the University

Library, suggested that the Sutro move into

the fifth and sixth floors on the north side

of the building. These floors had previously

housed the university library’s special col-

lections and administrative offices. With

that timely and brilliant suggestion, the

engineers determined that its load-bearing

walls and floors could handle the weight of

the Sutro’s collections. At last, a permanent

home had been found.

This new location, while not on the

same floor as the university’s special col-

lections, does offer several advantages.

The fifth and sixth floors are not shared

with the university. Thus, the Sutro

Library physically maintains its indepen-

dence as the San Francisco branch of the

State Library. The sixth floor, in particular,

represents an ideal secure space to house

the rare book and manuscript collections.

All the materials are now shelved on

conventional shelves on standard library

stacks in a high-security vault room. The

vault did not require compact shelving

units and the volumes do not have to be

double or triple shelved. To protect the col-

lections against the heavy coastal humidity,

the vault has state-of-the-art environmental

controls. And, the building is well engi-

neered to withstand the next earthquake. In

addition to all these positive features, there

is one other bonus. The two floors overlook

the beautiful central campus quad with its

attractive landscaping, groves of tall trees,

and striking student union building.

As described in the previous Bulletin

(#103, p. 31), Library staff both at the Sutro

led by Supervising Librarian II Haleh

Motiey and in Sacramento led by Deb-

bie Newton, head of the Administrative

Services Bureau, and David Cismowski,

chief of the State Library Services Bureau,

worked tirelessly to prepare for the move.

This included all aspects from planning

the stacks and furniture layouts to disposal

of obsolete furniture and equipment. San

Francisco State University staff helped

enormously in making this a relatively

smooth transition. No library move is prob-

lem free. Along the way, State Librarian Sta-

cey Aldrich, General Counsel Paul Smith,

and Library administrative staff reviewed

the master service agreement with the

university detailing the practical workings

of the Sutro in the Leonard Library. Begin-

ning in the spring of 2012, two moving

companies working with an excited staff

began packing books and installing shelves

in the new location. On July 5, State Library

Services Bureau Chief David Cismowski

turned over to the university the keys to

480 Winston Drive. A building that housed

hundreds of thousands of precious books

and manuscripts for nearly three decades

stood empty. On August 1, 2012, the Sutro

Library reopened its doors to the beauti-

ful new facility amid the broad smiles of

researchers and staff alike.

The State of California received the Sutro

Library in 1913. Now, ninety-nine years

later, it has finally found a suitable perma-

nent home. Its peregrinations are over.

“Adolph Sutro’s vision

of a proper home for the

Sutro Library has for

nearly a century been

a goal of his heirs and

every State Librarian.”

– Dr. Kevin Starr

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 4 3

n the morning of August 13,

2012, in Lubbock, Texas, the

Sutro Library’s honorary curator

of Mexicana, Dr. W. Michael Mathes passed

away after a valiant fight against cancer. For

decades, Dr. Mathes has been a generous

supporter of the Sutro Library and a close

personal friend. He will be greatly missed

especially as the Sutro Library enters a new

era in its new facility.

I first met Mike while serving as library

director of the California Historical Soci-

ety in 1975. We instantly hit it off with a

mutual love for books, bibliography, and

the history of our Golden State. At the

time, Mike was a professor of history at

the University of San Francisco. Earlier,

he had worked for the Society assisting

A�RemembranceBy Gary F. Kurutz

W. Michael Mathes (1936–2012)

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dr. W. Michael Mathes was Honorary Cura-

tor of Mexicana at the Sutro Library, Professor

of History at the University of San Francisco,

and Member of the Orden Mexicana del

Águila Azteca, Academia Mexicana de la

Historia, and Doctor Honoris Causa in the

Autonomous University of Baja California.

The author of dozens of books and articles on

Mexican, California, and Pacific Ocean his-

tory, Dr. Mathes has received such recognition

as the Henry R. Wagner Award, California

Historical Society; Sir Thomas More Medal

for Book Collecting, Gleeson Library Associ-

ates, University of San Francisco; Hubert

Howe Bancroft Award, Bancroft Library,

University of California, Berkeley; and the

Oscar Lewis Award, Book Club of California.

Dr. Mathes was a generous donor to the Sutro

Library, California History Section of the

State Library, and the Foundation.

Historian, bibliographer, and Honorary Curator of Mexicana at the Sutro Library, Dr. W. Michael Mathes stands in front of a fountain in Zapopan, Mexico, during a meeting of the Society of History of Discoveries in 2002. Photograph by Marianne Hinckle.

4 4 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

As we got to know each other, Mike

invited me up to his gorgeous home in

the hills above Sonoma. I thought I was

entering a Spanish hacienda seeing the

tiled roof, enclosed courtyard, and cactus

garden. Friendly German shorthair point-

ers greeted me. Not surprisingly, he loved

all things Mexican and served cerveza, chili

peppers, tortillas, and steak, all seasoned

with liberal doses of Tabasco sauce. After a

Beautifully designed and

published by the Book Club of

California, Mexico�on�Stone,

was a path breaking study of

book illustration in Mexico.

Many of the illustrations for

this large format fine press book

came from the Sutro Library.

with the editing of its quarterly journal,

and in 1968, the Society had published his

superb biography of Sebastián Vizcaíno,

the noted Spanish explorer. Mike’s com-

mand of the Spanish language and the

maritime history of the Pacific Coast were

without equal. In fact, he wrote the major-

ity of his books and articles in Spanish,

and most of his speeches were given south

of the border in Spanish.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 4 5

understanding about our state’s Hispanic

heritage and how few historians bothered

to investigate primary source documents

found in places like the Archivo General de

Indias in Sevilla and the Archivo General

de la Nación, México City. Few, however,

had his command of the archaic Spanish

written by the explorers and missionaries.

Mike had made countless trips to Baja

California. As a youth he enjoyed camping

in the rugged wilderness of our southern

neighbor. There he enhanced his knowl-

edge of Spanish and soaked in the local

culture and history. Because of his exper-

tise, he often led camping tours to this

Mexican border state for American tour-

ists. The Spanish explorers and missionar-

ies who opened up the region particularly

attracted his interest. Furthermore, he told

me the Mexican government had just fin-

ished a trans-peninsular highway. Know-

ing this, I asked him if he would lead a

California Historical Society bus tour of

Baja California and he readily agreed. I

could not resist signing up, and a busload

of Society members traveled down High-

way One of Baja California all the way to

Cabo San Lucas. Through much of the trip

Mike stood in front of the bus regaling

travelers with the peninsula’s little-known

history and lore. The tour included a New

Year’s Eve celebration at La Paz on the Sea

of Cortes and Mike left us to join friends

he knew in La Paz. He later told me how

he and his amigos fired guns into the air to

celebrate. I should mention here that Mike

did a great deal to develop and enhance the

Archivo Histórico Pablo L. Martínez in La

Paz, Baja California Sur. Our tour naturally

took us to this wonderful research center.

When I accepted a position with the

State Library as Sutro librarian in 1979, I

immediately contacted Mike. At the time,

the Sutro Library was located on the lower

floor of the University of San Francisco’s

Gleeson Library. Since Mike was a profes-

sor there, it made perfect sense to involve

him with the Sutro. Mike had told me of

its fabulous collection of Mexicana. Seeing

quick tour of his casa, he took me into his

library. My eyes must have seemed as large

as doorknobs as the room had book stacks,

and the shelves were filled with thousands

of volumes, ninety percent of which were

in Spanish. There was also a shelf full of

his publications. In an era before comput-

ers, he had placed on a stout table an elec-

tric typewriter and microfilm reader. I had

never seen a microfilm reader in a private

home. When I asked him about the reader,

Mike told me how he had instituted several

projects to microfilm historic documents

from Mexican and Spanish libraries and

archives pertaining to California and Baja

California in support of his research and for

placement in California institutions. This

was impressive indeed. During this and

subsequent visits, Mike would sometimes

reveal his disappointment with the lack of

4 6 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

One of the great treasures purchased by Sutro in Mexico City in 1889 was Antonio de Mendoza’s Ordenanças y Copilacion de Leyes. It is the first legal code and sixteenth book printed in the Americas. Juan Pablos, the printer, established the first printing press in the Western Hemisphere in the City of Mexico in 1539. (Opposite page) The title page bears the coat of arms of Emperor Charles V. Sutro commissioned a special binding for this early imprint.

an opportunity, I asked if he would help

develop the collection, and he enthusias-

tically agreed. Giving him access to the

closed stacks, he dove in finding one trea-

sure after another. Again, his command of

Spanish and Mexican bibliography proved

worth its weight in gold. Because of his

invaluable work, I asked then State Librar-

ian Ethel Crockett to designate Mike as the

honorary curator of Mexicana at the Sutro

Library. She agreed and Mike graciously

accepted this honor at a special ceremony

and continued in this capacity until his

death. The two of us had spent many a

happy hour in the Sutro stacks studying

its wondrous volumes.

As a scholar and collector, Mike was nat-

urally curious how Adolph Sutro acquired

his great and formidable collection of

Mexican history. Seemingly, Sutro devoted

most of his attention to European history

and the sciences. However, Sutro knew a

bargain when he saw one. As Mike discov-

ered, Sutro just happened to be in Mexico

City in 1889 at the time of the death of

Francisco Abadiano, the proprietor of that

ancient city’s longest established bookstore

and publishing concern. Sutro purchased

the entire stock of Librería Abadiano that

included thousands of individual titles

published from the sixteenth to the nine-

teenth century plus a mass of manuscripts,

pamphlets, periodicals, and ephemera.

It was a treasure trove. In addition, the

San Francisco bookman had acquired the

business records of the Abadiano family

whose business history stretched back to

1753. This exciting analysis by Mike served

as the subject for his illuminating article,

“A Bibliophile’s Dream: Adolph Sutro in

Mexico,” published in the Quarterly News-

Letter of the Book Club of California (Sum-

mer 1980). He observed, “Sutro probably

instructed his agents to buy everything, and

they interpreted this to mean the contents

of the desk and wastepaper baskets; he thus

unknowingly obtained an excellent collec-

tion of documents pertaining to the history

of printing and book selling in Mexico.”

While working in the Sutro and going

through the Abadiano purchase, Mike

started pulling together dozens of vel-

lum and leather-bound volumes with

a distinctive fire-mark or brand on the

head of the text block. It was a Spanish

custom to brand books with the owner’s

mark rather than using an easily removed

bookplate. These brands or fire-marks all

had the insignia of the convent library of

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 4 7

in 1985 by the Foundation as America’s

First Academic Library: Santa Cruz De

Tlatelolco,1535–1600. Mike’s last sentence

of his narrative summarized the impor-

tance of his discovery: “Thanks to [Adolph]

Sutro’s mass purchase and the distinctive

brands on the books, this first academic

library in the America’s remains substan-

tially intact.” In addition, Mike frequently

contributed articles to the Bulletin includ-

ing “Early Books from Mexican Monastic

Libraries in the Sutro Library” and “The

European Book in Sixteenth Century Colo-

nial Mexico.”

Realizing the tremendous importance

of the Mexican collection, Mike made a

point of promoting the Sutro Library

during his many visits to Mexico and

academic institutions throughout the

United States. A renowned lecturer, he

participated in many conferences in Latin

America. In addition, he knew antiquar-

ian booksellers in Mexico and Spain and

worked with them in adding to the col-

lection. Through the efforts of dealer and

library supporter Howard Karno, the Sutro

acquired the original publisher’s proof

sheets of Lord Kingsborough’s Antiqui-

ties of Mexico (1831–1848). A stupendous

large folio nine-volume work, the Antiq-

uities reproduced ancient Aztec codices

found in European libraries. The proof

sheets consisted of the artist’s instruc-

tions for hand coloring each plate. It rep-

resented a remarkable find. A few years

later, Mike made possible the acquisition

of a folio volume of original drawings

and manuscript text from the Antiquities

dated 1830. More than likely, Lord Kings-

borough himself used this volume to help

promote subscriptions to his grand and

costly publication project. He wrote up the

story of this remarkable publication ven-

ture for the Bulletin as “Edward King, Lord

Kingsborough: The State Library’s Unique

Collection of His Works Documenting

Ancient Mexican Civilizations.”

Another spin-off of Mike’s contacts in

the Hispanic world was attracting a donor

Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco from Mexico City.

Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga, the first

Catholic archbishop in the Western Hemi-

sphere, had founded a library in 1535 to

serve the clerics and missionaries in the

newly conquered land. Mike had located

inventories of the collection, and through

a careful analysis, concluded that the Sutro

Library possessed a sizeable portion of the

Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco library.

In addition, he found that three of the vol-

umes actually belonged to the archbishop.

Excited by this discovery, Mike thought

an account of this early New World library

a subject worthy of publication. State

Librarian Gary E. Strong worked with

Mike in bringing this bibliographic nar-

rative into book form. It was published

4 8

from Mexico to pay a then handsome sum

of $50,000 to have the Mexican pam-

phlet collection microfilmed. According

to Mike, this pamphlet collection was one

of the largest in the world documenting

Mexico’s struggle for independence in the

1820s. This project helped preserve the

collection and make the pamphlets acces-

sible for research to anyone via purchase

or interlibrary loan.

One major event, however, interrupted

our scholar’s work on the Mexican col-

lection. The University of San Francisco

had notified State Librarian Crockett that

it was terminating its lease with the state

of California and that the Sutro Library

would have to move. This forthcoming

event, while not pleasant as all moves are

traumas for book collections, gave Mike

the opportunity to further organize mate-

rial. The new location on Winston Drive

in southwest San Francisco included a

rare materials reading room. I had asked

Mike to select the best part of the Mexican

collection to go into the room as a means

of promoting this scholarly resource. Visi-

tors to the new facility could see shelf after

shelf of vellum-bound volumes document-

ing the history and literature of Mexico.

Images of Mexico decorated the walls and

end panels of the stacks. Mike also gener-

ously volunteered to write a bilingual bro-

chure describing the collection. As part of

his duties as honorary curator, he happily

answered queries about Mexicana not only

for in person visitors but also for those

A recent addition to the Sutro Library is this folio volume designed to promote Lord Kingsborough’s stupendous Antiquities of Mexico (1831–1848). Bound in pigskin, the

sumptuous work contains sixty striking full-page watercolor reproductions of Aztec

manuscripts found in European libraries. The Sutro Library also possesses the artist’s

proof sheets and a completed set of the most lavish work on Mexican antiquities.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 4 9

5 0 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

who wrote or emailed the Sutro Library.

Mike was such an asset with his ability to

respond to complex questions of Mexican

history and bibliography.

Working with such a collection gave

this phenomenal historian an opportunity

to expand his own horizons. The Sutro

Library possesses an uncommonly fine

collection of illustrated books printed and

published in Mexico. Mike had always felt

that Mexico’s printing and publishing his-

tory was not fully appreciated especially in

this country. He would frequently point

out that printing and library formation

came long before any such developments

in the Thirteen Colonies. Hearing this, I

suggested that he write a book on Mexican

lithography and he tackled the subject with

alacrity. In 1984, the Book Club of Califor-

nia published his Mexico on Stone: Lithogra-

phy in Mexico, 1826–1900. It received much

acclaim and was illustrated with many

examples from the Sutro collection.

Mike’s investigation of the Mexican col-

lection library continues to live on as dem-

onstrated by the following moving words

from Lindsay Sidders, a doctoral candidate

in history at the University of Toronto: “I

am saddened to hear of Dr. Mathes’ pass-

ing; his work on Tlatelolco has been (and

continues to be) instrumental in my work.

Without his extensive study it would have

been nearly impossible for me to organize

a research trip to the Sutro. The collection

on Tlatelolco is so rich and extensive and

he put so much effort and time into under-

standing and cataloging its various pieces

and history—I am so grateful. Hopefully I

can build on his important contributions.”

Much to our regret, Mike had decided

to move back to north Texas after spend-

ing much of his life in California. He had

purchased a ranch in Plainview and set up

his library in the new location. I quickly

learned from Mike that Plainview was the

home of the Mathes family, and he wanted

to return to his roots. However, via email

and telephone we kept in close touch.

Moreover, Mike made many return trips

to California to attend book fairs and give

talks and he always made a point of spend-

ing several days at the Sutro Library. He

happily continued answering reference

questions about the Mexican collection

and often sent boxes of gift books to us.

Mike rarely if ever said “no.” The noted

antiquarian bookseller and auctioneer

Dorothy Sloan had contacted me in the

summer of 2002 about writing entries

for a forthcoming auction of the Daniel G.

Volkmann, Jr. collection of the Zamorano

80. The Zamorano 80 is a legendary list of

the most important books on California

history up to 1930. Only one institution

has all eighty in first edition, and Volk-

mann was only the third private collector

to form a complete collection. It would

be one of the most noteworthy auctions

of Californiana in years. Sloan wanted to

produce a monumental catalog that would

not be a rehash of previous descriptions of

Zamorano 80 titles. I agreed to do the job

despite being given a challenging deadline

of early fall and I also realized that I would

not be able to handle the early Spanish lan-

guage material at least in a way that would

not be a repeat of Henry R. Wagner’s Bibli-

ography of the Spanish Southwest 1542–1794:

An Annotated Bibliography or the bibliog-

raphy entitled The Hill Collection of Pacific

Voyages. So, I suggested that she engage

our mutual friend W. Michael Mathes to

write the entries for not only the Spanish

language materials but also the early pre-

American period of voyages. Fortunately,

Mike agreed, and the two of us bolstered

by Dorothy’s encouragement and inspi-

ration, helped produce a memorable and

successful three-hundred-page auction

catalog at warp speed. The memorable

auction was held at the Society of Califor-

nia Pioneers Building in San Francisco in

February 2003.

The subject of the Mexican War intrigued

both of us. Mike had found in the collec-

tion a number of broadsides printed in

Mexico denouncing the perfidious invader

(the United States) as well as newspapers,

The front cover illustration of Dr. Mathes’s study of the America’s first academic library shows the firebrand or ownership mark used by this ancient Mexico City library that is now preserved in the Sutro Library.

Published in 1968, Dr. Mathes’s book on Sebastián Vizcaíno stands as a major contribution to the early maritime history of Pacific Coast.

b u l l e t i n 1 0 4 5 1

books, pamphlets, and prints document-

ing the Mexican viewpoint. In Sacramento,

the State Library had built a substantial

collection of U.S. government documents

and published eyewitness accounts, news-

papers, prints, and sheet music. We both

agreed this warranted a publication, and

through the generosity of the Foundation,

we published The Forgotten War: The Con-

flict between Mexico and the United States,

1846–1849: A Bibliography of the Holdings of

the California State Library. Mike composed

a very useful annotated bibliography of

Spanish language material while this writer

handled American publications. Related to

this, I had found in the State Library’s col-

lection an outstanding reminiscent account

of the war by an American officer John

Corey Henshaw. Mike urged me to edit the

manuscript for publication, and I sent him

many drafts. His knowledge of Mexican

geography and military history was invalu-

able. Bolstered by his encouragement

through dozens of emails, the University

of Missouri Press published the Henshaw

recollection in 2008.

My final personal story about Mike well

illustrates his friendship and commitment

to scholarship. He visited me in Sacra-

mento, and while having lunch, I told him

I had wanted to write a descriptive bibli-

ography of the Klondike Gold Rush simi-

lar in format to my California Gold Rush

bibliography. Mike immediately reminded

me of his trips to Alaska and the Yukon

and enthusiastically suggested that the

two of us go on an Alaskan road trip visit-

ing historically important places related to

the last great American gold rush. I was

incredulous and said, “How about if we

fly to Alaska and rent a car?” Mike replied,

“No, no—you have to see the terrain first-

hand to gain a true understanding of its

history.” How right he was. In late August

2010, he drove from his home in north

Texas and met me in Sacramento in his

brand new Chevy pickup truck. Together

we drove 9,000 total miles hitting places

like Carcross, Tok, Watson Lake, White-

horse, Five Finger Rapids, Dawson City,

Anchorage, Skagway, and Juneau. The

scenery was breathtaking and the vastness

of the region overwhelming. We made a

pilgrimage to Bonanza Creek, a tributary

of the Klondike River, where Californian

George W. Carmack and his Native Ameri-

can friends first discovered gold in August

1896. This discovery started the great

stampede north. During this month-long

trip, Mike generously drove me to places

like the Yukon Archives in Whitehorse, the

Anchorage Public Library, and the Alaska

State Library. Bookstores and museums

with their bookstores along the way had

their own magnetism, and we did our best

to support the local economy. At night, we

exchanged bibliographic tales and planned

the next day’s adventure. We now both

felt like real sourdoughs. On the return,

we spent time at the University of Wash-

ington’s special collections department.

Zooming down Interstate 5, Mike dropped

me off in Sacramento, and headed to San

Diego and thence across the border to give

a presentation.

Following that lecture, Mike then hopped

on a plane from San Diego back to Sacra-

mento to give a talk at the Library. The year

2010 was the sesquicentennial anniversary

of Mexico’s fight for independence. A local

bookseller notified us that he had run across

an unusual collection of Mexican manu-

scripts. I immediately contacted Mike, and

he went through the documents. Found

in this mass of material was an incredible

manuscript, the testimony and recollection

of Melchor Guasp, the jailer of the initiator

of Mexican independence, Miguel Hidalgo

y Costilla. With his usual promptness, Mike

translated the four-page manuscript. Based

on his recommendation, we purchased it

for the Sutro Library. The story did not end

there. This was too good to pass up, and

Mike produced a wonderful and moving

introduction to Guasp’s amazing account of

the final days of Hidalgo. This resulted in a

beautifully designed Foundation publication

and a public program at the State Library in

September 2010. The Mexican Consul to

Sacramento attended the event, and Mike

gave an engaging account of the discovery

of the manuscript and its contents.

That was the last time I saw Mike. We

had exchanged many emails and tele-

phone calls concerning various historical

projects and we both talked about making

a return trip to Alaska and Yukon Territory.

In one of his emails, he revealed that he

was fighting cancer but remained deter-

mined to beat the dreaded disease. Despite

that, Mike had planned to drive from his

ranch in Texas first to San Marino, Califor-

nia, and then to San Francisco to receive

the Oscar Lewis Award from the Book

Club of California in February 2012. He

also included in his itinerary a visit to the

State Library. I, along with others, had sug-

gested his name as a worthy recipient of

this prestigious award. Shortly before the

ceremony, I received an email from his

nephew Stephen Brandt in San Marino

that Mike was very ill and could not make

the trip to San Francisco. Entering the

Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, the

doctors discovered that the cancer had

spread. Stephen took excellent care of him

making sure he received the best possible

care. Ever determined, Mike recovered suf-

ficiently to give a well-received paper to the

California Mission Studies Association in

Santa Barbara. He returned home to Texas,

but the cancer had returned and Mike

entered a hospital once again. Following

several weeks of treatment, he entered a

hospice for his final days. One of the great

scholars and bookmen in California and

Pacific Coast history had died. His scholar-

ship will live on through his many books

and articles as will his many contribu-

tions to building libraries and archives. I

will be forever grateful for his long friend-

ship and big-hearted encouragement and

I so wanted to give him a big abrazo. On

August 16, Mike’s nephew arranged for

his burial at the Mathes Family Plot in

Plainview, Texas. W. Michael Mathes now

rests in Clio’s realm.

5 2 C a l i f o r n i a S tat e l i b r a r y f o u n d at i o n

A S S O C I AT E

Mr. & Mrs. Warren J. Abbott, West Covina

Bayford Butler, Penryn

Cathleen & Magnus Berglund, Amador City

Lawrence A. Cenotto, Jackson

Cindy L. Mediavilla, Culver City

Laura S. Murra, Berkeley

Laura B. Parker, Davis

Lydia M. Peake, West Sacramento

Suzanne Sheumaker, Jackson

Jonathan Starr, Los Angeles

Paul J. Tanner, Carmichael

United Way California Capital Region, Sacramento

Colleen & Michael Ward, Rocklin

Robert K. White, Novato

Earl Withycombe, Sacramento

In Memory of Mary Rose Evans Katherine Evans, Sacramento

C O N T R I B U T O R

Judith M. Auth, Riverside

Collin Clark, Sacramento

Bill Dean, Sacramento

Mr. & Mrs. Albert B. Faris, Campbell

Jody Feldman, Sacramento

Neal D. Gordon, Folsom

Bart Nadeau, San Francisco

John Rowell, Sacramento

S P O N S O R

Les & Mary De Wall, Davis

B R A I L L E & TA L K I N G B O O K L I B R A R Y

Maxine Bussi-Warns, Watsonville

John Carlin, Orangevale

Mr. & Mrs. Werner C. Cohn, San Jose

Judge Bill L. Dozier, Stockton

Brian N. Fidler, Oakland

Lucy Owens, Carmel

Jeanne Pello, Nevada City

Scott & Denise Richmond, Sacramento

Mr. & Mrs. Eugene M. Scott, Fair Oaks

Megan L. Slover-Murphy, Woodland

James B. Snyder, Davis

Mr. & Mrs. Eugene M. Scott, Fair Oaks

William H. Van Horn, Burlingame

Raymond & Wanda Wilmoth, Elk Grove

In Memory of Marie M. Bergin The Marie M. Bergin Trust, San Francisco

In Memory of Ora King Mary A. McCollum, Sacramento

In Memory of Adriana Z. Precissi Gary & Julie Abate, Stockton

Vernon & JoAnne Bava, Stockton

Norm & Gloria Beckham, Stockton

Elmo & Gloria Biglieri, Stockton

Earl & Jane Burdick, Stockton

Ed & Sally Burke, Stockton

Dan & Kathy Caminata, Stockton

Doris & Alvin Cortopassi, Linden

Michael & Barbara Demeter, Atherton

Mrs. Josie S. Franzia, Ripon

Nancy & Don Franzia & Family, Manteca

Sandra & William Goodman, Stockton

Mary & Roger Haack, Stockton

Angie Mangili, Stockton

Marlene & Gary Morris, Stockton

The Lory C. Mussi Family, Stockton

Lena Pinasco, Stockton

Jeanette & Jack Plotz, Stockton

Ernie & Dorothy Podesta, Stockton

Anne Precissi, Stockton

Donald & Ellen Precissi, Stockton

Precissi Flying Service, Inc., Lodi

John & Annette Sanguinetti, Stockton

Diane C. Tozi, Stockton

Patricia & Michael Trone, Stockton

In Honor of John A. Petersen Maggie Petersen, Walnut Creek

In Memory of Dorothy Price Mr. & Mrs. James Jackson, Banning

In Honor of Diane Sloan, Reader Advisor Diane Long, Ph.D., Berkeley

C A L I F O R N I A H I S T O R Y

Russell & Elizabeth Austin, Sacramento

Cengage Learning, Mason, OH

Victoria Dailey & Steve Turner, Beverly Hills

Don De Nevi, Menlo Park

Nat Des Marais, Portland, OR

Glenn J. Farris, Davis

Jim W. Faulkinbury, Sacramento

Stephen H. Gee, Los Angeles

Robert K. Greenwood, Las Vegas, NV

Mrs. Jessie V. Heinzman, Elk Grove

Suzanne Jacobs, Sacramento

Barbara Jane Land, San Francisco

Suzanne L. Leineke, Fair Oaks

M. Patricia Morris, Sacramento

Pearson Education, Livonia, MI

Mr. E. R. Penrose, Sacramento

Whitney & Clasina Shane, Prunedale

Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Shumaker, Fair Oaks

Claudia J. Skelton, Seattle, WA

James B. Snyder, Davis

Kit Tyler, Sacramento

In Support of the American Haiku Archive Mrs. Margaret Spiers Frank, Vashon, WA

In Memory of Susan MacDonald Bergtholdt Craig MacDonald, Huntington Beach

In Support of the Bernick Collection Mr. & Mrs. Michael Bernick, San Francisco

In Support of the Robert Kolbrener Portfolio Robert Kolbrener, Carmel

In Honor of Gary F. Kurutz John E. Allen, Sacramento

In Memory of W. Michael Mathes, Ph.D. Barbara Jane Lane, San Francisco

In Memory of Val Zemitis Sibylle Zemitis, Davis

S U T R O L I B R A R Y

Nancy Ehlers, Sacramento

Nevah A. Locker, San Francisco

Haleh Motiey-Payandehjoo, San Francisco

Priscilla J. Royal, Crockett

Cherie & Kenneth Swenson, Newark

In Memory of W. Michael Mathes, Ph.D. KD & Gary Kurutz, Sacramento

C A L I F O R N I A C U LT U R A L & H I S T O R I C A L E N D O W M E N T

California Council for the Humanities, San Francisco

Recent Contributors